Apolutrosis
by sammie28
Summary: The redemption of Grant Ward.
1. Chapter 1

**Apolutrosis ("Redemption")**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer: "Agents of SHIELD" is not mine. Basically, I shamelessly ripped and adapted the redemption storyline from the Agathon storyline in "Battlestar Galactica." Different scene set-ups, lines from different places. Laura Brown is from the Marvel Universe.

Summary: The redemption of Grant Ward. Simmons-centric.

A/N:

- title is Greek for "redemption".

- very alternate universe because  
(1) it ignores the death of Victoria Hand, because really, show? Good night, no one's calling her Mother Teresa, but she was a great character.  
(2) Coulson and May are friends, because seriously, the last two episodes I've wanted to punch him in the face for how he's treating her.  
(3) no doubt, the story doesn't have enough Skye saving the world to please tptb. .:eyeroll:.

- **nearly every scene is controversial. You are forewarned. And no, I'm not about to get into a battle about it on the comments page. You can PM me.**

- NOTE ON WARD JUMPING OUT OF THE PLANE AFTER "THE SCIENTIST": In light of Ward's parachute comment to Raina, I realized I missed something - apparently as did tptb and bad!Ward. As stupid as his no-goggles/equipment jump from the plane was, the parachute was the least of Ward's issues. Ward in "FZZT" only makes sense with good!Ward in SHIELD, not bad!Ward in HYDRA. Here's why.

FitzSimmons make an antiserum (not an antidote) for the Chitauri virus victims. They test it on rats; the last rat still discharges and floats, like all the bodies, but survives. There's no time to test it on humans, obviously a huge prerequisite for other drugs. Simmons should take the antiserum, because she'll die regardless, but this only applies to her.

Fitz is NOT infected and not likely to be - until he steps into the lab with Simmons. Ward is NOT infected and not likely to be - _until he jumps after Simmons_.

Jemma is contagious at the moment Ward catches her. Remember, in the lab, Fitz jokingly tells her to keep her hands off of him, and she never touches Fitz. By contrast, Ward grabs her bodily and they're face-to-face.

Ward could also have been infected after giving her the antiserum. Had the antiserum only worked on the mouse and not on her (not human-tested, remember?), she would have died away from the plane, as she wanted, but Ward would most definitely be infected almost immediately from his contact with her body. After all, she got infected just by coming near a body; Ward _held_ her. Even if the antiserum works on humans - and it does - antisera only give the person injected the antibodies needed to fight the invaders; they do not directly kill the viruses and infections themselves since they're not antidotes. The anti-serum would only protect Jemma, because she was the one injected with antibodies. The virus itself is still potent, and in the initial minutes or hours after injection, when her body hasn't killed off all the virus yet, Jemma would still be contagious.

The problem with Ward jumping out of the plane isn't that he risks hitting the ground, and that's fixed by the parachute. The problem with Ward jumping is that he risks _infection_, and a parachute does nothing to fix that.

The only way Ward could guarantee his own survival is to jump off the plane, dive after Simmons, then once out of eye-line and earshot let her go splat (no witnesses to his treachery), then go back to the bus sobbing that he couldn't catch her. (That might be more character development than Ward saw in the first half of the season.) Obviously Ward didn't; he returned with Simmons intact.

In general, though, bad!Ward should know that he needed to off Simmons ASAP. How is saving Simmons helping HYDRA? She's the least of the group, next to Coulson, who's going to the dark side. If they want Fitz, they have to separate him from Jemma. And SHIELD is stronger for having her. Really - should've let her pancake. Not being able to "catch" her in time would have been a perfect way to kill her.

So either bad!Ward is a blithering idiot ("better than Romanoff"? Puh-leeze), or his motivations for saving Simmons weren't completely mercenary. If I had been his Deep Cover Tactics 101 professor, I'd have failed him. (bad!)Ward, should have had a V8. Or stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

* * *

When Jemma and Fitz are captured, four months after HYDRA first comes out of the shadows, he is kneecapped (from the back) without remorse and she spends the ride back to the HYDRA headquarters with her hands on the knees of her best friend, desperately trying to save what she can. Unlike regular amateur kneecappings, HYDRA actually gets his kneecaps and more, and the neurovascular damage is so severe there's no saving his legs. By the time he's seen by a doctor, hours and hours later, it's too late; his legs are amputated above the knee.

HYDRA refuses to give him normal prosthetics: it's a wheelchair or it's Deathlok-type legs. Fitz would rather die than have the latter. She completely understands and supports his decision one hundred percent, even if it does mean she will have more work until he adjusts to his chair.

She sees the self-loathing in her best friend's eyes when she comes every morning to help get him out of bed, when she helps him to the bathroom. Even when he becomes strong enough again to lift himself in and out of the wheelchair, she can see how angry he is. So is she.

The guards assigned to their cell leer at her. It makes Fitz even angrier, especially now that he's not able-bodied enough to help her. Not that, given how many guards there are, the two of them would have been able to fend them off under normal circumstances. She is terrified.

They are not asked to do anything in those three weeks. They see no one they know for three weeks, not even Garrett.

In some ways, it's a horrible gift when Ward finally appears.

{ }

She hasn't seen him in four months and ten days.

The team already knew something was wrong when Ward disappeared after Providence, and then when he didn't meet them at every other checkpoint along the way. Hopeful she might be, but that is not to be mistaken for naïveté. Jemma realizes before Skye and Fitz what this all means. She sees May and Coulson's faces, hears their hushed discussions behind closed doors.

Whatever conflict the two senior agents have had over May's reporting on Coulson to Fury is quickly buried, because he has no one else to trust, and May has always been loyal to the team boss - even if he didn't like how she demonstrated that loyalty. And in light of Ward's betrayal, Coulson comes to rely on May more than ever, and it's not hard to see what their relationship was before Bahrain. It may be the only benefit Jemma sees for all this HYDRA mess.

She feels sad for Skye, who was not a little in love with her SO and thought maybe he returned her feelings. She feels sad for Fitz, who was just starting to warm up to the very different specialist and to be able to appreciate what the other agent brought to the bus. She feels sad for herself; she thought they were friends, at least. She doesn't indulge any other considerations, because anything she thought about Ward before was clearly steeped in lies anyway, so what's the point?

When he appears, it's almost anti-climatic. She is helping Fitz by reaching up to the shelf for something, and when she finally comes down and they turn around, he's standing in the cell doorway, having appeared like a ghost.

They simply stare at each other in silence for a full minute. She says nothing; neither does he. She doesn't really hear Fitz's angry rants, and she doubts he does, either. It makes her sad: Fitz's animated shouting, the colorfulness of the language in the rapidly thickening Scottish brogue, would have made her and her teammates laugh less than three, four months ago. She and Skye and Ward would laugh and laugh, to the point of having to prop themselves up against each other; she can almost see Coulson's eyes twinkle and even May's slight, amused smile.

How big a difference a few months make.

Now he looks at them, and although it's clear he recognizes them, she sees none of the gentleness he used to show when they hurt most.

She is vaguely, dimly aware that Fitz is now hissing at him about the guards assigned to them, in a voice that's low enough so only the two of them can hear and the guards can't. She has no illusions, though, that anything Fitz says will make a difference in their circumstances. Even as Fitz is still talking, she looks at Ward dully, then turns away and heads back to her books. There is no mercy in his expression, and her hope dies with it. She doesn't look up when the door shuts behind them.

It surprises her, then, the next morning, when a female HYDRA guard comes into her and Fitz's cell and unceremoniously plops the food tray on the table and walks out. Fitz is surprised but grins in relief. She just stares the door, confused. She didn't even think HYDRA _had_ female agents.

(She will not see the male guards again, not until - until.)

* * *

The next week, the ship they're on gets in a particularly bad firefight with a SHIELD helicarrier, and she and Fitz are put under lock and key in their cell during it. She helps Fitz with his secret project, trying to sabotage the internal computer system, but all they're able to do during this short time they aren't watched is to patch a feed into the main control tower. It's good enough. They get to hear how the battle goes. Fitz even manages to send a few false HYDRA orders into the mix of directions being fired at the different HYDRA pilots, and in the ensuing chaos, they're actually obeyed, sending a few units off on wild goose chases. SHIELD wins decisively, and the two of them are giddy like schoolchildren.

The euphoria doesn't last long. The door to the cell swings open, and it's the head of the night shift guard. "You." She points at Simmons. "They're asking for you."

"She doesn't go anywhere I don't," Fitz barks.

When they reach the upper medical bay, it's obvious what they want Jemma to do: help treat the wounded.

She treats the HYDRA agents as best she can, but she finds that there are barely any medical supplies about, and that the sole doctor and the sole nurse on board are swamped already. She comes to the sinking, horrible realization of what this organization is when she sees how disposable it considers human life to be. However the agents themselves may feel about dying for a greater cause, HYDRA itself treats its people as disposable pawns to be sacrificed.

She patches over thirty people in those two days; she closes the eyes of forty who die on her table.

She holds the hand of a HYDRA agent who won't make it. He recognizes her - "Dr. Simmons? Jemma Simmons?" and in his delirium thinks he's back at SHIELD. He babbles that he can't believe he got to meet one of the FitzSimmons, and everyone at Ops is going to be jealous because hey, the Academies never mix and he still got to meet _Jemma Simmons_. In his last moments, he asks for his mother to be brought, and for him Jemma Simmons fades away until he thinks his mother is the one there, comforting him. He passes quietly, holding her hand.

Fitz can't believe she's helping. "You realize every one of these agents you're patching is going to get better and go out and try to kill Coulson and May and Skye and Hand and Blake and Trip," he hisses at her, furious. "Why don't you just hand them the bloody gun!"

"They're still people!" she spats back at him. "These are still human lives! I'm not the one who gets to decide who lives or dies!"

"But you do," Fitz snaps back at her in a furious tone, his voice low. "You marked all those wounded coming in, those you thought were saveable and those who were too far gone."

"That's not the same," Jemma retorts in a whisper. "I'm limited. I can't save them all. If I can save one, then I will save one, rather than let both die."

"I'll bet if May came in worse than one of these HYDRA agents you'd save him before her," Fitz spits at her in anger, and she raises her hand to strike him, barely managing to stop herself in time.

"Oh, please," she hisses in a low tone. "Of course I'd help a good person first. Of course. There's no question. But it doesn't mean I just stand by and let an enemy die when I can save him! You - you want even the saveable ones to die!"

"You talk like you would have saved them all if you could," Fitz retorts angrily but quietly.

"Because I would!" she shouts. "Because they're human, Fitz! Because they have value! I didn't join SHIELD so I could win! I joined SHIELD because it protects life, justice, all the things we believe in! I don't cease to be SHIELD because I'm here!"

The entire medbay has gone silent, the only sounds the antiquated monitors checking the dire patients' heart and blood pressure rates. Her eyes flicker to the side, and she notices everyone looking at her, both patients and agents.

She washes her hands again and picks up her clipboard. She walks past Ward without giving him a second glance.

Three days later she and Fitz are moved to an even more secure cell, but one with a bit more amenities. They have a private bathroom now, rather than a toliet to which she has to wear her winter coat in order to cover herself from the view of outsiders.

Their room is attached to a lab, and Garrett tells them he wants them to reproduce GH325. When they tell him they don't understand it, he tells them to work harder; after all, they've worked with alien things before, like the Chitauri virus. (He smirks as he mentions that, knowing how betrayed the two scientists feel that he knows it. Ward simply stands by, stoic.) They can figure out GH325, he says, if they can figure out how to deliver an antidote for some alien virus.

As the two HYDRA agents leave, Fitz mutters at the door, "It was an antiserum."

* * *

The third month, she ends up in Ward's bed.

She hates him for it. She is frighteningly and depressingly grateful for it.

It's a horror she begins to understand a little of, finally. When one is "willing" to have sex in the narrowest definition of consent, but something one would never, ever do under normal circumstances of complete freedom, when there is no relationship of power in place. For her and Fitz, Ward controls life and death.

Jemma can only be grateful that Ward is never harsh, violent, or demanding. She knows that the millions trafficked around the world and subject to systematic enslavement do not have what she does. But, as Fitz reminds her, that doesn't mean she is okay with it. It doesn't mean she isn't suffering from exploitative rape. It doesn't mean that she consents freely.

She does it because she doesn't know how else to repay Ward, and she has realized quickly that he provides for their needs. Her and Fitz's rations have increased a little, there is no more torture, there are no more male guards leering at her. Moreover, although Garrett keeps pushing, there doesn't seem to be much punishment when they drag their feet on doing borderline unethical things they had promised each other never to do - at least, not yet. And yes, Garrett is getting impatient with them; Jemma is well aware the angrier this man gets, the more precarious their situation is.

The first time she thanks Ward, it's verbal. He simply looks at her and walks away. Fitz says nothing.

The second time she thanks him, it's verbal. He says nothing. Fitz rolls his eyes.

The third time - the third time.

Garrett shows the both of them a video HYDRA has shot. There are two charred bodies in body bags, and May and Coulson and Skye are there, and it seems they're HYDRA's versions of Life Model Decoys - and they're of Fitz and of Simmons. May and Coulson are staring down at the bodies, their faces frozen in shock. Skye is screaming on the video, and even if there's no audio, her expression is clear: denial, and then anger, and then tears as she sinks to the floor, sobbing. Coulson is so stunned he is unable even to comfort his young protégé.

"They're not coming for you," Garrett says, then makes a mock pouty sad face at them. "They think you're dead. Probably even grateful you're dead and not in the hands of HYDRA." He smirks. "You're lucky to be alive, you know. I'm not even sure you're worth my pain and trouble, except Ward says you are, so ta-da-da!"

She and Fitz just stare at the monitor, stoic.

Fitz is angry, determined. He's bound and set on getting home and ripping a new one in HYDRA. She is, too, but for the first time she feels overwhelmed. She puts on a brave face for Fitz.

One night Fitz stays up late to work on something, and she goes to their cell, and she just weeps, silently, overwhelmed. She feels as helpless as she did when she stood in that cargo bay, looking down at the forty-thousand foot drop, when her biggest hope was that she died from the Chitauri virus before she hit the ground.

She knows Garrett is turning on her and Fitz. She has no idea how to counter that.

He's watching. He comes to her, sits awkwardly by her, and for a moment all she can see is the man who jumped out of the plane after her, the one holding her when she regained consciousness, the one who gave her his hand and steadied her and (clumsily) reassured her as she faced that fifteen-foot climb up a tree. He reaches across to hold her hand, just as he had then, and she's too exhausted to sort through the logic of the fact that he's probably just manipulating her.

She thanks him again for watching out for her and Fitz here. She stupidly mentions her fears. She can smell alcohol on his breath when he leans in to her, and his eyes are dulled by whatever amount he's drunk. He kisses her neck and slurs his quiet promise that he'll take good care of her and Fitz.

And that's the third time. Or, more accurately, the first time.

She slinks into the lab the next morning, her eyes dull and sad. Fitz has been frantic, not finding her in their cell when he returned. He's infuriated with Ward when she tells him, quivering so hard with rage that she's afraid he'll give himself a stroke, as good as his health is.

Ward doesn't come by for three days. The next time the HYDRA agent does come around, Fitz launches himself at the man, and Ward learns for the first time since they met that Fitz has an excellent left hook. She hears herself screaming, because she's afraid Ward will kill Fitz, but the taller man just stands there and takes it until the HYDRA guards come and pull Fitz off.

Ward does not look at her.

It's even worse when, a week later, a set of prosthetics arrive. They are simple stainless steel blades with a hinge for the knees, and the HYDRA doctor tells them he has new orders to allow them to be accompanied to Iceland, to Ossur, to get better ones. Ossur! If it had been any time previous to these few months, they'd have been on the first flight to Iceland. _Ossur_!

But they both know who issued these new orders, countermanding Garrett's; they both know who bought the prosthetics, and it's due to this that Fitz refuses to put them on; in fact, he is so furious he can barely speak. Blood money, he calls it, and throws them in the corner.

When she's "accidentally" "bumped" in the hallway by several male HYDRA agents, and Fitz is helpless to come to her aid, it's then that they look back at the gift. They check and recheck the blades for tracking devices and needles and everything, but it seems they are genuinely what they are and are actually swept clean of monitoring equipment. Fitz puts them on with great reluctance but sets about determinedly to becoming mobile and agile in his new legs. He refuses to be helpless next time, he tells her.

Those prosthetic legs, though, are a horrible reminder to both of them of the price paid.

She can't help but wonder if things would be different if she weren't who she was. If she were May, she would have crossed off everyone by now, and she and Fitz would be home. If she were Skye, she'd have sweet-talked their way out of here by now. If she were some non-descript, uneducated layperson, she and Fitz wouldn't be considered of interest to HYDRA at all. But she's Jemma Simmons, who failed her field test and can't lie to save her life, and so they're stuck here at the mercy of HYDRA.

{ }

The next time it happens, it's five weeks later, after she and Fitz have injured themselves badly with chemical burns because of HYDRA's lack of safety precautions. To be honest, she and Fitz almost welcome death, even though it will be a long, agonizing death for both because their wounds aren't really life-threatening if they get medical help. Hey, if they have to go, at least they're going together.

With the support of their female HYDRA guards and the crusty old doctor on board, Fitz and Simmons are both treated. They're assigned a new nurse, a sassy, short brunette with crazy curls poking out everywhere from her head, and it becomes quickly evident why: even the biggest HYDRA agents seem to fear her. FitzSimmons watch in barely concealed shock when a six-foot-four HYDRA agent gets a gigantic hypodermic needle full of vaccine right in the rear because he won't cooperate with her. Fitz barely manages to conceal a giggle, and Simmons manages her first real smile in weeks.

She finds out later from that same sprightly nurse that Ward, whom they have not seen since the incident started, had ordered care for them to be brought in from the outside.

When the two SHIELD agents are both truly well and back in their cells, Ward finally stops by. He does not argue with the rant the engineer launches a tirade at him; the man then silently allows the engineer to leave, which the latter does in a huff. Jemma gives Ward a piece of her mind, too, and he takes it with stoic silence.

Still, she's alive, and Fitz is alive, and she knows he ordered them specially treated, and he's said again that he'll take care of them - and what if he doesn't? she panics - and that - that's the second time.

After he lifts himself off of her, he pulls the sheets and blankets up firmly around her shoulders, cocooning her gently against the cold air. He murmurs quietly in her ear before wrapping an arm around her and falling asleep with her carefully tucked against him. He has not been unkind or violent or even selfish, and she knows how fortunate she is in that regard. Still, it's never just physical, is it. She can't sleep and lies awake for hours after, tears stinging her eyes.

In her rarely-indulged fantasy, it's never like this. Never. And never in these circumstances. But then she never thought Ward would turn out to be HYDRA.

She wonders if she's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. She knows that his actual power over her life and death, and over Fitz's life and death, are clouding her judgment. She fears that she won't recognize that any more, and she fears she won't recognize this - thing, not a relationship - for what it is.

{ }

It's two weeks later when she offers - offers, this time, and this time it has nothing to do with thanks. Fitz has been attempting to send out a signal to SHIELD and in the process got electrocuted because of faulty and damaged wiring around their lab. He's good enough that he's hidden the signal, so HYDRA doesn't find it, but right now that's the least of their problems. There is no AED, and she's doing what she can to try to save Fitz. She's screaming for help, and the guards get him on a cart and to the medical bay.

And it's there she learns that since the chemical spill accident, Garrett has given orders that they not be treated. For ANYTHING. And on this HYDRA ship, Garrett's word is law.

She stares at the doctor, agape, for a full second of silence, and then begins arguing, but no one says or does anything. They roll Fitz into the surgery theater, but nothing is being done, and now they won't let her into surgery to help him, either. And the worst of it is that she knows Fitz is easily saveable - if they act quickly.

The door opens, and in comes Ward.

She turns on him in fury. "He saved your life on more than one occasion! More than one occasion! He developed those ICERs for you, he developed tracking for you!" It seems to get no reaction, and soon tears are streaming down her cheeks. "Please. Please, please don't let him die." She falls to his feet, weeping. "I'll do anything. I'll do anything, I swear. I'll come tonight. Tonight! Just don't - please, please, don't let Fitz die!"

She has two doctorates. She was SHIELD SciOps' golden child. She is on her knees, selling herself to get medical treatment for her best friend.

Her grandaunt, her grandmother's sister, lost her husband to the Nazis when they took the Channel Islands in World War II. She had five children and no income, and when her oldest son was caught aiding an Englishman in escaping, she slept with the Nazi commanding officer so that they would commute his sentence instead of sending him to a concentration camp. She was a jerry-bag for the rest of her life.

That night, as the guards watch over a resting Fitz, she goes back to their cell. She combs through her things for what is her most attractive clothing, which is nothing because HYDRA burned the clothing she was captured in and have supplied all her other clothes. She settles on just her underthings, then wraps her winter coat over herself to preserve her modesty.

She picks the lock to Ward's room, though not very well - Fitz, despite all his lessons, could never get her to the level of ease he had. She then shuts the door behind her and locks it, then takes off her big winter coat and puts it on the door hook and sits down on his bed. She's trembling. She covers herself with a pillow and takes deep breaths, trying to keep herself calm enough not to cry. She can't stop the tears, though, and she focuses on trying to keep herself from shaking, and to disconnect mentally enough to keep from shivering.

One would think these things got easier. They don't. Each time is worse than the one before.

The door opens, and her breath catches, and he walks in and drops his things onto the desk, and then whirls around, his gun raised and pointed at the intruder. She starts, sucking in her breath and willing herself to complete stillness. He stares at her, his eyes hard but clear shock flickering across them.

"I - I promised," she swallows, and she succeeds in getting her hands from shaking, but she can't stop the sting of tears.

She mistakes his look as disgust for her. "I'll stop crying. I can stop. I promise. I - "

He lowers his gun, then walks over to the phone and presses one of the buttons. He radioes for one of her guards, who are all staying with Fitz in the med bay. When the guard shows up in a few minutes, he shoves Simmons' winter coat at the guard to give to her; then he gives the HYDRA guard orders to remove Simmons from his room. He completely ignores the woman in question.

She panics. "Please," she begs him, directly. "Please. You won't stop treating Fitz, will you?" When he says nothing, she yanks herself away from her guard, her coat left in the other woman's hands. She grabs at his hands, pleading as she kneels in front of him, pressing his hands to her forehead as she begs for Fitz's life. She's shivering, whether from the cold or from everything that's happened she doesn't know. "Please. Please. I'll come back tomorrow. I won't cry. I - Please."

He says nothing. The guard puts her winter coat on her and walks her back to the med bay. She spends the night in scrubs and her winter coat, seated by Fitz's bedside. The next day, the engineer continues to get medical treatment; that night, she tries again with the HYDRA agent, terrified that if she doesn't at least try they'll stop Fitz's care.

Ward does not return to his room that night. Or the next.

In her hours of sleeplessness, she thinks of the women and the children. She wonders if this is the choice they make every day: to give away part of themselves for food. To give away part of themselves to live. To give away part of themselves so their loved ones can survive. She wonders about those who are beaten, burned, abused, slashed as part of their torture. She wonders about those who have lost loved ones and now must appease the murderers. She wonders about those who were kidnapped, those who have loved ones who don't know where they are. And she wonders about those who are abandoned, who have no one looking for them, and just have the yawning abyss of each future day ahead of them.

She wonders about the workers who fight back: the ones who get shot and hurt on raids to free people, the ones who teach a new trade to these women and children, the ones who will spend the rest of their lives counseling these victims. She wonders if these workers' minds and hearts end up just as cold and hopeless as the ones of those they save, as they look at the millions suffering.

* * *

Things rapidly deteriorate after that. In hindsight, saving Fitz must have tipped Ward's hand to HYDRA.

Jemma is alone in her and Fitz's lab when the former guards, the ones Garrett had originally assigned to guard her and Fitz, come to "interrogate" her about SHIELD, Fitz's recent accident, and and her lack of progress on her projects. There's no question exactly _how_ they intend to do it.

She swings a chair in front of her, holding them off, and she manages to throw chemicals at two and put them out of commission. But there are still eight more of them and only one of her. She is sobbing as they grab her, pinning down her arms and legs, and even in her terrified screams and their laughter she can hear belt buckles loosened and the sounds of pants' zippers.

Brave, brave Fitz comes tearing around the corner at a run, and it's a testament to how easily he's taken to his prosthetics that he manages to stay upright the entire time. He shot a HYDRA agent once to save May; he has no gun now, but it's not wise to take on an engineer who makes bombs for a living. He manages to stuff one of his projects into one agent's chest pocket, and the subsequent small explosion makes him leave the room, screaming. Fitz jumps on one of the other guards and wraps the chain on his handcuffs around the man's neck and pulls, choking him to unconsciousness.

It's still a lopsided fight, and she has no doubt everything would be worse if he hadn't arrived.

Ward crosses off the guards in the same way he used to clear hallways for SHIELD: cold, calculated. The guards are no match for a SHIELD-trained specialist - a SHIELD-trained ex-specialist. These guards - the ones who had leered at her when she first came aboard, the ones who were removed - are now dead or unconscious around the lab.

There's more shouting as HYDRA sends reinforcements, and they're yelling. She sees Fitz lying on his stomach on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back; she sees Ward kneeling, his fingers interlaced behind his head in his demonstration of surrender.

She is still sobbing, barely able to sit up, trying to pull her pants up and her shirt back down over herself. She pulls her lab coat over her back to hide herself, still shaking as tears stream down her face.

{ }

The chief of the guard for FitzSimmons is pacing angrily in the medical bay even as Jemma sits on the edge of the bed, tense. The crusty old doctor is furious about the whole thing, and he treats her with a gentle tenderness he does not reserve for the HYDRA agents who are in the next bunk, and whom he makes wait for treatment. When the chief guard tells the doctor that Jemma gave one man a concussion and cracked ribs with a chair and a few others chemical burns with her vials, the doctor hmphs proudly.

She doesn't share that sentiment. It's still too close for comfort. And it hurts to breathe.

"What will happen to Fitz and - Agent Ward?" Jemma asks quietly.

"Your partner will probably be executed right away," the blonde says shortly. "Agent Ward will be put on trial and then executed." It seems Ward's trial will be a complete farce.

Jemma closes her eyes.

"How is she?" the guard asks the doctor, as if Jemma isn't there.

"Your ribs need taping," the doctor finally pronounces, speaking directly to the SHIELD scientist. That explains why it hurts to breathe. "Your bruises should fade in time. And the baby seems okay."

Jemma opens her eyes, then stares at the doctor. Her guard is staring at the doctor, too.

"Oops," the doctor mutters.

{ }

Two nights later, Simmons is roused from her bed. Her chief guard stands over here, a gun in hand.

As if in a dream, Simmons is placed in a large mail bag and hauled through hallways, fireman-carry style. She wonders if she should scream, but what good is it? No one here will help her. Her best friend is in the brig. And her - whatever Ward is - is there with him.

She is unceremoniously dumped on a chair and unzipped, and as the bag falls away, she sees that she is in a cargo bay. Fitz is lying on the ground, unconscious. She runs to him, sees a big bruise on his face. "What did you do to him?" she whispers angrily.

"He wouldn't shut up," her guard replies curtly. She walks over to the tall figure standing in the shadows, cuffed. She pulls the black bag off his head, then unlocks his cuffs. She points at the small transport and says to the HYDRA agent, "Get in and get out."

Jemma looks up at that, shocked, and looks straight at her guard. Ward stares at the guard also, uncomprehending.

"Get in and get out," she repeats. She hands Ward a gun with a silencer. "You're going to have to make it look good."

Ward snaps out of it first. He nods, taking the gun and sliding it against his back.

"Wait, what?" Jemma gasps.

"I'll be executed if it looks like I helped you escape." The blonde quickly points towards the transport.

Ward picks Fitz up and puts him into the far side of the two-seater transport, buckling him in. He then uses a quick start, only the essentials, to get the engine going. He turns back to them, but Jemma isn't ready to go.

"Why?" she asks.

"Because," the HYDRA agent states in a clipped tone, "it was wrong." Jemma is silent for a moment, and then the guard leans in to her quietly. "I don't know if you can ever recover from what was done to you," she says, softly. "But you - " she smiles, and it's genuine and kind and such a rare sight for Jemma these last few months. The woman grips her hands encouragingly. "You be brilliant, Dr. Simmons."

"What - " Jemma can't believe she's never asked. "What's your name?"

The guard pauses, then says, "Laura. Laura Brown. Now go. Quickly."

Jemma quickly climbs into the transport as Ward aims the silenced gun at the blonde guard and wings her in the arm and then the calf, then pistol whips her unconscious. He scratches his nails down her face, drawing blood, and punches her in a few places that are very visible but should hurt less. He uses the metal of the gun to cut the palms of his hands, then smears his own blood on her hands and knuckles before climbing into the transport.

As they fly away, Jemma turns back to watch, the open cargo bay quickly swallowed up in the night.

* * *

They dock with a SHIELD helicarrier, and although Fitz manages to give all kinds of codes to the air control team, SHIELD is understandably suspicious. They are surrounded the minute they land, and then their landing spot slowly, mechanically, sinks to a lower level - which has legions of SHIELD agents, guns pointed at them.

From the window of the transport she can see May and Coulson and Skye standing there, guns at the ready.

Ward silently pulls the gun from his back and hands it to Fitz, who carefully opens the door on his side and slides the weapon across the floor towards May and Coulson.

There's a lot of shouting, and there are shocked gasps when Fitz exits, his prosthetic blades stepping out of the transport first. He holds up his hands as he comes out. The fact that he's now disabled seems to make SHIELD trust him more.

Ward nods to her. She carefully scoots out from her seat, trying not to jostle her ribs too much, then steps out of the transport with her own hands up. She can see May and Coulson's faces: half-hope, half-agonized disbelief. Skye is staring with her mouth agape.

Ward wisely makes the choice to exit on the side of the transport where May and Coulson are. He scoots his long legs all the way across the small two-seat transport, then holds his hands up and slowly steps out.

This time there's actual gunfire, and she's shouting, "No, wait!" Fitz is yelling, too, but she doesn't hear it, because she feels a hard tug down towards the ground, and someone protectively covering her. He grunts in pain, and for a moment she feels his heavy weight drop on her. Somewhere Fitz is shouting frantically for them to stop, and she feels something wet run down her arm.

As they pull Ward off of her, she sees the blood flowing down his arm and his side. She sits down against the side of the transport, gasping, even as Fitz sprints towards her to check her over for wounds. She's fine. It's not her blood.

She looks past all the crowds, and sees him staring back at her before he's pulled out of sight.

**continued**


	2. Chapter 2

**Apolutrosis**  
by Sammie

See part 1 for notes. **Nearly every scene is controversial. You are forewarned. And no, I'm not about to get into a battle about it on the comments page. You can PM me.**

* * *

SHIELD keeps her and Fitz locked up for a whole week, trying to determine whether or not they're really them and whether or not they're HYDRA plants. She and Fitz put up with it with great patience because, well, they'd have the same suspicions if someone else came back like this. And seriously - they're _home_. They're so giddy with joy SHIELD could have locked them up for another week and they'd have taken it without complaint.

Skye is, of course, the first one to believe them. For a street-smart hacker, she's really rather trusting. Too trusting.

Jemma can see the weariness on May and Coulson's faces. They want nothing more than for all this to be true, to have FitzSimmons back, but they are too cautious to be completely welcoming, especially after Ward's betrayal.

And Ward. After she's told he's been treated for his wounds and is recovering nicely, Jemma doesn't think of him for a week. It's unlike her, but then she hasn't been herself in the last few months.

He's being held in a glass cage. The walls are made of a metal alloy not unlike what they had on the bus, but it's been made transparent so they can see what's going on inside his room. There's a blanket on the floor - no pillow, no bed. There's a garbage can in one side and a bucket with a lid on it in another; Jemma realizes with a small shudder that the latter is the toliet.

The visitor's log states that the only people who have been to see him are May and Coulson. It would explain why he's still alive. She's not sure Hand or Blake would leave him breathing, especially the former, given how Ward shot her.

Fitz still refuses to visit.

Skye seems both reluctant and eager to see him, a mix of horror and curiosity. They go down together finally, and Ward stands when he sees them.

Skye goes first, picking up the phone outside in the hallway that connects to his inside. He picks its partner up. They say each other's names as greetings, and then there's an awkward silence, and then Skye mentions something about May taking over her training. Jemma doesn't watch, giving them privacy, but when she looks up, he is looking straight past Skye at her.

* * *

She doesn't feel comfortable telling others about the pregnancy, partly because she's still in shock from the news. By her calculations, it's been a mere four weeks from the time she was last with Ward to now - what an insane four weeks - and so she has at least two months to decide what to do, possibly even longer, before she begins to show. She keeps her condition hidden as long as she can, packing away her fitted shirts and opting for looser blouses and sweaters. She's also unexpectedly aided by the return to SHIELD: she and Fitz had gotten rather thin while at HYDRA - partly due to stress, partly due to the meager meals - and so some of her weight gain and filling out can be attributed to that the removal of those stressors. The SHIELD doctor knows, but Simmons swears her to secrecy, and it's easier to hide once they all move back to the bus. She's got some time.

May notices first, and when Jemma asks how she knows, the older woman doesn't answer.

She has carried this burden so long and so silently that everything just spills right out. She's so grateful she's sitting in the cockpit with May, because everyone knows not to bother May in her inner sanctum.

"Have you decided what to do with it?" May asks quietly. "No one would blame you, you know."

"I know." Some days Jemma hates the baby so much.

"So?"

"How can I punish it for something it didn't do?" she asks suddenly, voicing her ethical concern. "It didn't rape me, it didn't torture me, it didn't kneecap Fitz. It's not HYDRA. I can't punish it for merely existing."

"Simmons, what happened to you was abuse."

"And I couldn't punch _you_ in the face because of what a HYDRA agent did to me, so how can I do something to it because of what its father did?"

Her heart wars with her head. It's always been a battle she's fought as a biochemist in cutting-edge science, but it feels different on a personal level. After a long silence, May squeezes her hand. "Take some time to think about it," she says gently. After a pause, she asks, "Have you told him?"

"No. Fitz is angry enough on my behalf as it is," Jemma says automatically.

"Justifiably so," May concedes. "But I meant Ward." When Jemma looks up sharply, May replies, "I know you've gone down to check on him."

"So has Skye." Jemma gives a counterargument.

"So have Coulson and I," May adds. "But I've seen Ward's face when it's you who goes down to see him. Then, you and Fitz being alive, given how many times you should have died? Fitz's prosthetics? Your pregnancy? I put two and two together."

Jemma stares at her, then suddenly bursts into tears, and she tries to get herself under control. May just gets up, coming to sit on the arm of the chair Jemma occupies, and she holds one hand and rubs her shoulders and her back as she sobs. She is hurt and confused and furious and depressed all at the same time.

It's a good five minutes before she can actually speak. "I hate him," she sobs. "I hate him for this HYDRA thing. But I don't know if I'm angry at him or grateful he kept me and Fitz alive and safe, and for saving me and bringing us home."

May squeezes her tight in her arms, and it astonishes Jemma that May can be so comforting. But it's welcome.

It takes a good ten minutes before the tears stop. May takes her hands in hers. "You survived, Jemma," she says, her voice soft but still firm. "You survived. You and Fitz. And even more than that - what was done to you, you're still you - and you turned someone - you _turned_ someone," May says in a voice that's proud in its astonishment. "Most people don't come back from experiences like this, much less do that."

Jemma's eyes flicker to hers, and she sees only pride in the pilot's look, something which puzzles the younger woman to no end.

May squeezes her hands. "A year with us, Skye's shooting by the Clairvoyant - none of that stopped Ward from leaving for HYDRA. But you and Fitz disappear for four months, and he comes back and willingly puts himself in chains day in and day out." She shakes her head. "Whatever you did - " she trails off, still shaking her head.

"Do you...do you know why he..." Jemma trails off.

"No. Coulson and I are still debating it." May sighs and rubs her eyes. She gets up, takes back her seat across from Jemma. There's a long silence, and then she said firmly but quietly, "HYDRA would have executed Ward for saving you, yes," May concedes. "But we would have executed him for treason - nearly did. So why come here?"

Jemma falls silent.

May continues, "We've been monitoring him, and he's got no communications going out. Ward has genuinely not tried to contact anyone."

Jemma frowned. "So - is he waiting, like before, when he was a sleeper?"

"I don't know." May sighs. "There's also the question as to why he didn't drop you two off and then hightail it somewhere else. He's got identities around the world. He could effectively disappear and never pay for his crimes. Why is he _here_?"

Simmons looks at the older agent; she opens her mouth, then shuts it. She has no answer.

"HYDRA agents in the past also have implants," May continues, "including a cyanide implant in the tooth they can activate if they're caught. He hasn't activated that, either."

Jemma swallows, hopelessly confused.

May smiles gently at her. "Jemma," she says, and it's the first time the older woman has ever used her first name, "you focus on getting better first. You'll have to decide soon about the pregnancy."

Jemma doesn't want to, but May insists. She and Fitz start seeing therapists, separately, and it's more of boon than not. The biochemist has little use of psychiatry or psychology, but having someone uninvolved in this entire mess is wonderful. Kara is kind but firm, and never once does Jemma feel like she's talking to a psychiatrist, but to a friend. She is also intelligent, and for that Jemma is grateful. She does not suffer fools easily, and having someone who can at least understand what she's saying is gratifying.

With each passing day, and each weekly session with Kara, Jemma feels more like herself.

* * *

Triplett has been assigned to the team, at least temporarily. It's a precaution Hand insists upon, since Ward is being sent from the SHIELD helicarrier to the bus as well, along with two guards.

May and Coulson fight over that transfer. Coulson wants him on board; May doesn't. Skye wants him on board; Fitz doesn't. They look at her for the tie-breaking vote, and she simply tells them to do what's best for them all. After the three younger agents troop off, though, she sees May and Coulson exchange looks, and the argument is even more heated, though hushed, than before.

She knows that May's arguments are in part made for her benefit.

She discovers later that Ward fights hard not to be assigned to the bus. May's first suspicion is that he wants to be on the helicarrier as a spy, but before she can even voice that concern or let on that she's thinking it, Ward suggests he be put at the re-secured Fridge, in the Sandbox - before suddenly suggesting the SHIELD lockdown in Barrow, Alaska. May and Coulson are staring at him, slightly dumbfounded. There is seriously nothing in Barrow, nothing HYDRA would want, but not really the most escapable location, either, given its surrounding area.

Jemma will discover months, months later that May finally wrings it out of Ward: he doesn't want on the bus because he feels his presence punishes her and Fitz.

The ultimate decision is made by Blake, backed by Hand. Basically, neither of them want a potential HYDRA leak on board, and better send him off with Coulson's Crazies where only a few agents will die than have him sell out a whole helicarrier. Any potential feelings Jemma and Fitz have about this don't matter. "I feel so loved," Fitz mumbles sarcastically.

It turns out to be a boon.

HYDRA manages to tractor beam the bus - but rather than pull it onto a HYDRA carrier, it latches a huge HYDRA transport onto the bus. May can't shake it, no matter what she does, and Skye and Fitz are unable to prevent the HYDRA computer from temporarily taking over their mainframe.

Triplett is in specialist mode, shoving weapons into Fitz's and her hands, and into Skye's. He and May and Coulson decide to take the fight to HYDRA: they're going to raid the plane before they can send men down to the bus. They're even taking Ward's two guards with them - the situation is that dire.

The plan works - to some extent. No HYDRA agents ever make it onto the bus. It doesn't mean the battle goes well.

All HYDRA has to do is keep the plane attached, and their course is set for the HYDRA headquarters. They just have to hold off the five SHIELD agents long enough to get the bus within HYDRA hands. No matter what Skye and Fitz do, they can't break the link. Coulson radioes them, tells them to cut the bus loose any way they can - essentially sacrificing the five agents on the transport to save the plane and the younger agents still on board. Never mind that the younger ones don't really know how to fly the bus, and Coulson specifically had SHIELD's control over the avionics removed.

Jemma is frantically deleting as much as she can from the SHIELD computers - Skye is giving her override codes - and she forces herself to turn her mind away from potentially becoming a HYDRA prisoner again. It terrifies her to no small extent. And it terrifies her for the fetus she carries.

During World War II two of the Axis powers - the ones who revived HYDRA - used live humans for scientific testing. However she feels about her pregnancy, she is horrified by the thought that this tiny life will be subject to that.

Skye reappears - when did she disappear? - and the first words out of Fitz's mouth are, "OH, H-LL NO!"

"Fitz! We don't have a choice!" Skye shouts as she runs by. "I don't know how to fly this d-mn thing!"

Ward is right behind her.

His leg shackles are off. His hands are still loosely bound by steel cuffs, connected with a three-foot long chain. They run towards the cargo bay stairs, up towards the bus.

Fitz takes off after them, using his arms to help pull and to steady him as he goes up the stairs. Minutes later he's sliding back down the stairs, shaking his head. He grabs Jemma by the hand and sweeps their equipment off the table, into a cabinet he shuts securely. He pulls her out of the lab, then hits a button to lock the lab doors.

He's swearing under his breath the whole time.

"What's going on?"

"Skye's about to do something stupid," is all he says. "Well, Skye's about to let Ward do something stupid." He motions to the seats with the seat belts. "Get in, quickly."

They're barely strapped in tightly when she notices the plane stop and immediately turn around - heading into the wind, this time. She's barely managed to get a hold of herself when the the plane begins tipping, rapidly. It takes Jemma a second to realize what they're doing, and good night, it makes her stomach roil so badly morning sickness is like petting a cute puppy.

Ward is _barrel-rolling_ the _bus_. Like it's some _jet fighter_.

The first barrel-roll results in a sickening scrape of metal on metal, and suddenly the bus bounces like a balloon as the HYDRA transport comes loose. After that, Jemma, whose general sense of balance is not bad, counts three more, even more quickly executed barrel rolls. Fitz counts none. He is sick to his stomach.

When they finally right themselves - and stay that way - Skye comes bolting down to the cargo bay, shouting at them to come up. They quickly unbuckle their belts and run upstairs, where they survey the damage. They're free of the HYDRA transport, though, and more than that - as they lean out, looking at the transport through the windows of the bus, they see May give them a salute. The unanticipated move from the bus and the detachment of the two vehicles gave the agents the element of surprise they needed to take over the transport.

It's the first captured HYDRA plane, a HYDRA product and not a SHIELD product co-opted by HYDRA. SHIELD is practically drooling over this capture.

May and Ward fly both crippled machines back to the nearest SHIELD helicarrier. SHIELD takes him into custody the minute they land; he stands quietly in the lounge as his guards shackle his legs and lash those to the chains on his hands. He stumbles a little on the stairs as they lead him down from the main floor to the cargo bay. They push him towards the open cargo bay door, but he resists a little, pulling back long enough to look at Jemma, his eyes searching her over quickly before being pulled away.

All of them are debriefed. Ward is interrogated for days.

In the ensuing weeks, SHIELD learns that their locking mechanism, similar to the ones HYDRA uses, are only slightly less susceptible to what Ward did to detach the HYDRA transport. They're square locking mechanisms, able to latch on firmly but not flexible enough to adjust to rapid shifts. The rapid 180-degree turn, the air resistance of heading into the wind, and then the quick barrel rolls tore the transport off the top of the bus. Ward suggests a gimbal-based locking system for flexibility, but acknowledges that giving it the firmness and the solidity of the square-lock transports will be difficult.

Coulson is complaining, albeit without force, about the damages to the bus and not having the budget to fix it; May is just smiling broadly; Triplett is giddy, nearly laughing; Skye _is_ laughing; and Fitz is moaning about not wanting to embrace this change and having vomit on the ceiling of the cargo bay - but his face is filled with relief.

She smiles at their joy, and she feels a little of it, but she just can't seem to be as delighted as they are. All she can think of is what she would have done if she'd ended up in HYDRA's hands again, and with this baby.

When they bring Ward on board, he's still chained. Despite all of them standing there, he looks straight at her, his eyes searching her worriedly before he's yanked away. His scrutiny doesn't go unnoticed; while Coulson and May and Fitz aren't paying attention, Skye sees where Ward's attention goes, and Triplett notices her expression and traces it back to the chained prisoner.

The party slowly disbands, and Jemma heads back to work.

Later, Coulson comes up from Ward's cell to check on her. He's quiet and gentle, and he keeps asking a series of questions which basically revolve around how she's feeling, asked in eight different ways.

When she finally asks why he keeps pushing, since she's fine, he sighs. "He's worried," the older man says without ceremony, and she doesn't need to know who 'he' is. "He doesn't say it, but he keeps asking if he made you - or the others - unwell. And he keeps talking about not ending up back in the hands of HYDRA."

"Well, HYDRA would execute him if they recaptured him," Jemma points out reasonably.

"But Ward's never feared death. Him coming back to SHIELD proves it," Coulson replies, then looks at her to see if it's sinking in.

She shifts uncomfortably. She doesn't know what to think.

"Don't think it was him he was worried about," Coulson finally says what he's thinking. He smiles at her, pats her hand, and walks out.

* * *

Skye makes more frequent trips to see Ward, now. Jemma supposes that Skye would be good for Ward, and she herself is just a mess right now, so she doesn't go down to see him. Besides, food is delivered regularly, and his meds are kept up, and his cell on the bus has an actual toliet, and he's not sick, so there's no reason for her to go down, is there?

Fitz doesn't go down to see him, either. Jemma isn't sure she would if she lost both of her legs like that.

May mentions in passing, casually, at dinner one night that perhaps Ward needs to have his blood checked. It's time for the annual physical, according to his records, and they also need to monitor him to make sure HYDRA isn't kicking in some failsafe to kill him.

Fitz mumbles that it would serve him right. No one says anything.

Jemma doesn't go down to see him. Coulson draws his blood and brings it up to her to check. She adjusts Ward's supplement regimen because he's not getting enough Vitamin D.

Skye later mentions off-hand that Ward has been asking after her and Fitz. The hacker searches Jemma's face for some reaction, but there's none to give because she doesn't know how to react.

It's the middle of the night when she finally goes to see him in his cell for the first time. 3 am. She doesn't know why she choose this time; maybe she's hoping he won't be awake. She wraps a big robe around her, and with the flannel pyjamas.

She doesn't expect him to be awake, but she's barely down the stairs and in the hallway leading to his cell when he suddenly swings his feet from his bunk to the floor and gets up, his muscles tense and ready for some sort of action. He stares at her for a moment, not quite comprehending.

She looks a mess, she knows - she hasn't been sleeping well, her morning sickness just came back, she wiped off all her make-up to go to bed, and her hair is in a big messy bun on her head, and she's wrapped up in a gigantic Captain America bathrobe with the star on the shield falling off. And on top of all that, she's still dealing with the trauma of everything.

His hand reaches for her almost inadvertently, towards the glass, and then he quickly puts it down at his side when he realizes what he's doing.

* * *

When she can no longer hide it, she reveals the pregnancy to the team, who are understandably furious that HYDRA would do this to her. Besides May, who already guessed who the father is, Jemma only tells Fitz. He is furious, but he does nothing because Jemma asks him not to. "But don't expect me to go see him," Fitz bites off.

She doesn't tell Coulson or Skye who the father is.

Ward, of course, knows. The day she decides to tell him, she wears her fitted sky blue shirt with white stripes and the tie, and it's so obvious that she has to put her coat on over top. She goes down there, and he takes one look at her, and his eyes grow round. He shuts them for a full minute, and when he opens them, she can see the self-loathing, the murmured apology on his lips.

She wonders if it's all an act.

{ }

She gets her answer two weeks and three days later. They're being pursued by HYDRA, and May is trying to get the bus, which is already running on fumes and patched like a quilt, out of the way of a helicarrier that's crashing into their path. She seems to be wrestling something, and that's when Skye and Fitz figure out that the mainframes of both vehicles has been destroyed by a HYDRA logic bomb.

There's a huge argument upstairs, between May and Coulson, as the three younger agents sit on the main level, waiting tensely. When they appear, May says curtly, "I want all systems routed here to the briefing room."

"You better be right," Coulson mutters as he and May head downstairs.

They lead Ward out in handcuffs and leg shackles. His steps are mincing, to make sure he doesn't trip over anything. Fitz refuses to look at him, and Skye seems torn between anger and puzzlement.

Coulson spreads a garbage bag on the ground and Ward steps onto it. The older man then takes a pair of scissors and cuts a single slice from the neck of his tee-shirt down to the shoulder seam, then steps back.

"Do it." May hands Ward a knife.

He takes the tool, and with the two older agents looking on stoically, he raises his cuffed hands and slices through the skin on his deltoid muscle. The three younger agents gasp in horror as blood begins to spill out and trickle down to his hand. May hands him a thick, flexible steel cable, pulling it from the wall panel.

"What the h-ll!" Skye exclaims, even as Fitz is stunned silent.

Jemma can only see the long cut, and the blood coming out and dripping onto the garbage bag, and the steel cable with wire going into his body, pointed in the direction of his neck, towards his spine.

When she looks up, she sees him staring straight at her, his face stoically still but his eyes screaming with pain.

"Get on it!" Coulson barks at the hacker, and as she and Fitz quickly turn their attention to the monitor. Jemma can only stare at the blood pooling on the plastic on the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Fitz and Skye frantically rebooting the bus's computer systems. All she hears is something about clearance codes and biometric checks and something about Ward having both SHIELD and HYDRA biometrics implanted in his nervous system, and soon Fitz and Skye are shouting directions at each other as the stream of information coming from Ward's HYDRA neural implant nearly overloads the system.

It seems like hours to her, but in five minutes it's all over. Skye shouts in triumph as she uploads all the new data to the helicarrier, and within two more minutes, that ship has righted itself as well.

Skye turns to Ward with a big grin, and even Fitz is laughing in relief. May is running back to the cockpit, even as Coulson is completing the last parts of the override on both the bus and the helicarrier, something which requires his clearance level.

Jemma doesn't make it to Ward in time, dashing around the table towards him and reaching him just a few seconds after he hits the floor, his bloodshot eyes rolled up in his head. She quickly cradles his head in her arms and carefully pulls the cord from the long gash in his shoulder. "I need my kit now!" she barks, and Skye runs down to the lab.

Ward's unconscious, so she doesn't make anything of his bloodied hand gently resting on her belly.

* * *

She's sitting in the chair next to the phone connected to Ward's cell, asking him questions and typing away answers for her research into HYDRA implants. He stands on the other side of the glass, the phone on his side pressed to his ear. It's how they always interact now, when they do.

His voice is always gentle when he asks if she needs a break. She doesn't know if he's playing her. Once she looked up at him, catching him off-guard, and he had an inexplicably hungry and desperate expression which vanished so quickly she doubts now whether she really saw it.

This time, when they're finished, he asks quietly if she has some time. She immediately offers, and he hesitates, then says she needs some pen and paper.

And so he begins his confession.

His name isn't really Grant Ward. (That she figured out already.) He was actually the child of an American journalist working in Lebanon and a Lebanese woman. His father had been killed during the civil war, and then he and his mother were displaced, eventually ending up in a refugee camp for just a little time. They were there a few years before she was killed in a Hezbollah suicide attack; he ended up back in the refugee camp, this time for much, much longer.

She breathes in sharply. He chuckles mirthlessly. Those camps are just that bad.

It was there, he says, he learned how to fight. It was also there he came to learn the appreciate the need for strict rule, strict order, strict rules. HYDRA was attractive, in its quest for a socially perfect world order by dominating all of society, ending crime and terrorism before it even happened. SHIELD or HYDRA, he has no use for idealistic claptrap about everyone loving each other and having a grand international civilization of mutual affection. He has seen the world - he has seen people. He knows what depths of evil even the regular person is capable of.

She does, as well. That's why she delivers that potentiality talk with such conviction. She is a biochemist, and she grapples with the ethics of what she does daily - ethics which deal far more with security versus privacy or big business versus the individual, but with life and death. She knows quite well the lows to which the human race can sink, even when they wish to do good; after all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It was the attraction of the mission, he continues, with the kindness of the people. Garrett recruited him from an orphanage; he took advantage of the fact that he had no family and no father figure. HYDRA was providing for him all that he needed.

He isn't saying this to condemn anyone. No one was obligated to care for him. He is simply stating the facts, so SHIELD would understand how he - and no doubt many others - were recruited...so SHIELD would know how to protect against it.

When he was to join SHIELD, HYDRA then gave him the applicant identity of Grant Ward, a young boy who had already died trying to protect himself and his younger brother from an abusive older one. With the resources of SHIELD, HYDRA had implanted in his mind some memories of the Grant Ward childhood, to aid in his deep cover. It's easiest to manufacture feelings which come from truth, he explains, and so he does have some "memories" of things which never happened - like having a younger brother (who never existed in his real life but had in the real Grant Ward's) being thrown down a well. He is well aware of which sets of memories are his own, part of his real identity, and which ones are part of the manufactured Grant Ward identity; he simply has the option to tap into the latter if he needs to do so.

She's busily writing away before a horrible thought strikes her. Her terror is clearly written on her face, because he responds immediately - though he mistakes what it is she's actually fears. Ward promises to go through brain scans, especially if it helps Coulson understand what happened with TAHITI. He owes Coulson.

That's not what she's thinking about, though. She panics when he reveals the stuff about implants. Is he going to die if he reveals too much? Will HYDRA kill him to protect his deep cover? She insists he stop talking until Fitz can set up a blocking signal so HYDRA can't remotely detonate him. He is annoyed by the delay and even insists it's unnecessary. Over the long process of making sure he's safe, she discovers, to her horror, that he really isn't interested in staying alive any more. Even though he never says it explicitly, to her it's obvious: for all his intellect and training, he evidently thinks it's better for everyone involved if he simply died, and his confession is his way of making sure all the information he can supply is out there before he does.

She briefly ponders refusing to write any more and stopping this confession part-way through, but she knows logically that has nothing to do with whether or not Ward lives after today. Then she wonders why she cares if he lives or dies, given all the things he's done.

{ }

The most difficult part of this whole thing is when he begins to talk about his year with them - from the moment he stepped onto the bus to the moment he brought them back to the helicarrier. HYDRA wanted him to finagle his way onto Coulson's team to figure out how Coulson was again alive. Yes, he was there to spy on Coulson. No, he was not there to spy on them.

No, he did not have anything to do with her or Fitz's assignment to the bus, but it had been too handily convenient. Yes, he had been well aware of FitzSimmons and their cooperative prowess well before he joined the team, even if he hadn't bothered learning who was who at first. It was only later that he had discovered she had worked on Steve Rogers' recovery team. Yes, it was after meeting them that he had suggested to Garrett to take them both to work for HYDRA.

No, shooting Skye was not in the plan, but had been a last attempt by Garrett to force Coulson to speed up his search for whatever it was which saved him. He had notified Garrett of Coulson's search, and the man had instantly flown out to meet the bus.

No, Triplett was not a HYDRA agent. He had simply come along with his boss. It was Ward who had suggested Trip stay on the plane during the raid on the Guest House, just to keep him out of the way.

He pauses, then mentions rather measuredly how enamored of her Triplett is, and says in a slow, soft voice that Trip is a good man. When Jemma looks up at Ward, though, that quiet, steady voice is accompanied by a look of deep pain, which he quickly wipes from his face the second he sees her watching him. But it's too late, and she's seen it.

They move on to the time she and Fitz were at the main HYDRA headquarters, a SHIELD helicarrier they had commandeered. Yes, again, he had been the one to suggest to Garrett that HYDRA could use them. Yes, he had planned the raid to separate them from the rest of the team. No, he had not ordered Fitz kneecapped; that had been part of Garrett's plan, just as shooting Skye had been.

No, he says firmly, his voice pained, he had nothing to do, ever, with the male guards assigned to guard her and Fitz.

Jemma closes her eyes, trying to stop her hand from trembling, trying to shut out the images of them coming into her lab that day. Ward asks quietly if they should stop for the day, but she takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. No, they will continue.

The most painful part is how he got the team to trust him. He used reverse psychology on Coulson, arguing that he did not want to be on the team and didn't benefit from it; he knew Coulson would immediately cave and demand him on the team just to show how important it was. How he agreed to be Skye's supervising officer to keep an eye on the unknown variable. How he slept with May to earn her trust.

And jumping after her?

He stares at her for a long moment, and then says in a measured, sharp tone that he jumped out of the plane after her to earn the team's trust. He had a parachute, after all.

It hurts, terribly. Still, she finds herself unsurprised, given all the other things he's already confessed to doing, and forces herself not to dwell on it. And she appreciates his honesty.

It's not until a week later, when she's thumbing through a catalog for used but still usable lab equipment, that it suddenly occurs to her his argument doesn't make much sense logically. He's either not a very good spy (better than Romanoff?!), or he -

When she confronts him, he doesn't look at her. He says nothing.

{ }

Jemma feels her spirits lift by the whole marathon confession. She takes her meticulous notes up to Coulson and to May, and she shows them all the parts they need to confirm are true. She is not about to be duped by Grant Ward again, and so she passes along her suggestions and his suggestions about using certain private clinics in different countries for DNA tests, using independent verifiers for information. Her gut tells her that Ward is telling the truth this time, and the whole thing makes her happy.

Coulson and May looked surprised but pleased, also - and driven. They're visibly suspicious when she presents them Ward's account, but they are determined to confirm the details. They will order the body of the real Grant Ward dug up; they will run DNA tests on the American journalist their Ward says is his father. There are also a battery of other tests to do, as well. Jemma is buoyed by all this: the possibility of Ward's honesty, the science, the drive, the hope.

She runs her own DNA tests, which confirms Ward's testimony to her: his father, his lack of siblings, his origins. She finds five reputable labs in nations around the world to run the same tests, under falsified names so HYDRA and SHIELD won't know who requested them. They also confirm Ward's current account.

Jemma doesn't realize what damage she's doing elsewhere. Skye is quiet when this all begins; when the DNA confirms Ward's current account, hurt flickers across her face. Jemma is puzzled by this, but Skye doesn't say why she reacts this way. It's Ward who sighs and tells the biochemist that he had used his Grant Ward identity on Skye; he'd lied and told her, as a way to gain her trust, that his secret reason for joining SHIELD was to protect his younger brother.

As Jemma sits there, looking up at the regret on Ward's face, she wants to kick herself for the pain she has inadvertently caused her close friend.

They sit in silent a few moments, and then Jemma asks, quietly, why he confessed to her - and not to Coulson, or May, or Skye.

His eyes flash with pain. He says nothing.

**Next **


	3. Chapter 3

**Apolutrosis**  
by Sammie

See part 1 for all notes. **Nearly every scene is controversial. You are forewarned. And no, I'm not about to get into a battle about it on the comments page. You can PM me.**

Yeah, the more I watch the last couple episodes of "SHIELD," the more obvious it is to me that I'm not Marvel's target audience. Coulson, you better stay still while I shoot the high horse you're sitting on, or I will succeed where Loki didn't and no trips to TAHITI will be enough to fix you. Now, instead of continuing what would be a very long-winded rant about your protégé, I'm just going to say I liked Simmons' TARDIS comment and those brilliant, prescient nuns who wanted to name Skye "Mary Sue." They evidently outvoted the funny ones who wanted to call her Wesley Crusher.

* * *

Ward's cell slowly accumulates furniture. Soon a small desk and chair join the cot and the toliet, but the desk is soon replaced by a large conference table.

The only people allowed in Ward's cell are May and Coulson, and it soon becomes evident why: Ward is now consulting for SHIELD. It's a strange reversal of his position in relation to Skye's: she's now at a higher clearance level than he is (no clearance counts as a level) and he's the consultant.

It's evident that he's slowly winning their trust back, slow being the key word. Oddly, it's Coulson who begins to trust him first - maybe not oddly, since the man has always been about second chances. Ward and May slip into a professional relationship, one of collegial respect that actually brings more openness and cooperation than had their previous relationship. (And please, everyone on the bus knew.)

Skye laughs when she finds out that SHIELD has put two leather recliners in Ward's cell. "You ordered these, didn't you," she says to Coulson. "It's such a 'man' move!"

Jemma and Fitz are watching the exchange with big grins of amusement. For a moment it's as if nothing has changed, as if the clock rotated back a year to when they were first a team.

"How is that a 'man' move?" Coulson exclaims, a little insulted.

"You're making Ward's cell into a man cave! Now all he needs is a flat-screen and a game console! What, you going to sneak down here and play video games in the middle of the night?"

"No," May disagrees in a serious tone, "he won't." She doesn't even look up from the file she's perusing.

"Why? Coulson above such juvenile tricks?"

"No, because Ward isn't allowed electronics in his cell," May replies in a deadpan tone, not missing a beat.

Skye smirks at Coulson, mouthing "Booyah" as the older agent gives May a hurt look she ignores.

SHIELD removes the recliners, eventually, and he gets an overstuffed leather couch instead. It's not new, but it's been well-kept, and it warms up the room.

Fitz hasn't seen it. He thinks it's a waste of time and money.

* * *

The rest of SHIELD is not that accepting of Ward's return. Victoria Hand, namely, but that's understandable, considering Ward shot her and left her for dead. But the specialist-turned enemy-turned voluntary prisoner takes it all in quiet stride. He has earned their ire, and he knows it. He is paying for his sins, and he expects to pay quite a bit, so he does it with quiet forbearance. He's not doing all this because he wants their approval; he's doing it because it's the right thing to do. Others' opinion are irrelevant in that sense.

When they bring him on board the main SHIELD headquarters, now one of the helicarriers, he's marched through the hallways in chains. Some spit on him. His guards are as much there to protect him as they are to protect SHIELD from him. He keeps his eyes straight ahead and walks stoically through the hallways until they reach the central control room.

SHIELD is hitting a major HYDRA hub, and they need Ward's help getting in.

Skye and Fitz accompany May and Coulson; their skills will be needed. Hers are not, so she stays alone on the bus. Triplett comes by to stay with her.

An hour and a half later, a SHIELD agent appears in the doorway of the cargo bay. "Agent May has requested your presence, Dr. Simmons."

"Wait, why?" Triplett asks suspiciously.

"No, it's quite all right," she says, slowly shifting her weight so she can stand up gracefully. She quickly strips off her gloves and washes her hands, but in her haste, she forgets to take off her lab coat and the big neon green goggles sitting on top of her head.

They hurry to the control room of the helicarrier, where May meets her at the doorway. She gives her a gentle smile, and Jemma can't figure out why May looks so...unworried. "Is everything all right?" she asks.

"Oh, everything's fine," May replies. "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

Jemma blushes, even though she knows it's a regular part of being pregnant. "No, not right now."

"Okay." May escorts her in, then points at a comfortable desk chair in the corner, with a laptop and small rolling desk pulled up to it. "You can use that one."

Jemma is thoroughly confused. "For what?"

"I know you're working on the HYDRA implant system. I had your notes uploaded. You can keep working on it over there."

Jemma is staring at the older woman, completely baffled, but does as she's told.

In the hustle and bustle of the war room, she makes herself as inconspicuous as possible. Fitz and Skye give her occasional grins and wave at her, even if they are as confused as she is. She catches Ward's eye occasionally, and at one point he just smiles to himself in amusement, and she's so thoroughly confused until he unobstruviely reaches up with his handcuffed hands, one touching his hair briefly. She follows his motion with her own hands to find her big green goggles still on her head, and she quickly takes them off with an embarrassed blush. When she looks at him again, he's not looking at her, back focused on the task at hand, but there's a trace smile on his lips.

Over the course of the seven-hour battle, she gets up five times to use the restroom. She doesn't notice it, but Hand does: Ward unconsciously following her with his eyes as the little scientist heaves her body up from the chair and, her head bowed slightly, the curls in her hair hiding much of her face as she quietly scoots out of the room; Ward's eyes trailing her as she reenters and hurries to her desk, much in the same way she left.

Over the next week, Simmons will be too busy treating the wounded to know of the private meeting in an conference room off of the war-room. When they bring the wounded on-board, both SHIELD and HYDRA, she helps to coordinate the mass medical treatment efforts. Her efforts to help their enemy combatants is more welcome on a SHIELD helicarrier than on a HYDRA one, and despite some grumblings, everyone who can be saved is. Her back aches something terrible, but she works through it.

{ }

Garrett is captured in the raid and brought on board the helicarrier. Hand - well, heck, all SHIELD - has still not forgiven him for having Ward shoot her or for the crimes he's committed.

He lopes onto the helicarrier, that laidback look even while in chains. Coulson gives very specific directions that while Fitz may come and go as he pleases, he doesn't want Garrett or the other HYDRA agents to see Jemma anywhere. They already know Fitz has lost his legs; Coulson will not allow her pregnancy to be more ammunition for HYDRA to use. Indeed, in order to level the playing field as much as possible, the level 8 agent recuses himself - and then sends in the Calvary to conduct Garrett's interrogation.

While Garrett does talk about Fitz and what was done to him - and he even speaks to the camera, as though Fitz were there watching - he's mostly irritated about the fact that Ward has abandoned him, and the HYDRA senior agent is sure why.

"So where's that pretty little scientist he was banging? I never thought he'd give me up, especially when he left that gorgeous hacker behind, but clearly that little piece of tail he was getting on the plane at HYDRA was way better in bed than I thought."

May punches Garrett in the face. Repeatedly. Jemma is grateful no one else heard what Garrett revealed.

{ }

Simmons won't know that, in the days after, Hand will suggest May and Coulson give her to Ward to ensure his loyalty. The two older agents are in shock, even if they don't show it. Even Blake is horrified, and he argues, quite truthfully, that FitzSimmons are more valuable to SHIELD as scientists then as prostitutes - and he uses that term. The arguments fall on deaf ears.

Hand says, rightly, that right now there's no SHIELD for the scientsts to work for anyway, and they have to take care of HYDRA first simply to survive, and if sacrificing a biochemist to ensure the loyalty of a major asset is necessary, it's necessary. After all, she argues, Jemma Simmons swore an oath of loyalty to SHIELD and will do what she is ordered to do.

And, Hand points out, it's clearly obvious that Simmons had been sleeping with HYDRA in order to keep herself and Fitz alive, and so what the h-ll was the difference between why she did that there and what she'd do here - keep SHIELD alive?

It's May who cuts it short. She simply looks straight at Hand, and says calmly and clearly as a bell, "No."

"No?" Hand's voice is sharp.

"No," May replies in that same tone.

"I outrank you, Agent May."

"Then I quit," May replies with that same ease, and it's no small threat when the Cavalry quits. "I don't work for people who use _comfort women_." The Asian agent hands her SHIELD badge to Coulson. "I'm going to go check on Jemma."

She lopes out with an ease of someone going to get a candy bar from a vending machine.

Blake is shaking his head. "What Dr. Simmons did to keep herself alive - that's her issue," he argues. "But it doesn't mean we get to institutionalize it!"

"I saw May bring Simmons into the war room, and don't you tell me it wasn't for Grant Ward's benefit," Hand snaps at Coulson. "You tell me how what I'm doing differs from what she did!"

"May asked her to sit in a chair and work on her research!" Blake exclaimed. "She didn't ask her to sleep with him!"

"Says the person that eager to throw her off a plane when she was infected with a virus," Hand snaps, and Blake falls silent.

"May brought her here so Ward would know she was close by in case things went south," Coulson barked. "She did it Ward's peace of mind regarding Simmons' safety. You're willing to destroy Simmons so Ward can indulge his base instincts."

"For the greater good," Hand snaps.

"Greater good?" Coulson snorts. "Is the greater good a society in which higher-ups pimp out people they deem less important in order to keep the loyalty of those they deem more important? So who decides who is important, Hand? You? Me? HYDRA? Al Qaeda? The United States?"

He heaves a sigh, running his fingers his fingers over May's SHIELD badge. He shakes his head. "You don't understand, Victoria."

"What's there to understand? He wants her. He gets her, he'll stay loyal to us."

"No, you really don't understand, Victoria." His smile is small but steady, one of a man who has made his decision and is at peace with it. "Ward's not dumb. He was Level 7 before everything went to pot. Do you realize how far you're going to drive him away if he realizes that you've pimped out one of your faithful SHIELD agents to try to keep his loyalty? He nearly died to save Simmons, then risked more execution to bring her and Fitz back. You do this - you violate the basic bounds of basic humanity, you're going to send him straight back into the arms of HYDRA, and I'm not sure he'd be wrong to go this time."

Coulson shakes his head. "You give Simmons to Ward, he's not going to touch her - and it's got nothing to do with her pregnancy. He's not going to touch her, not until he wins her trust back. He's not going to slake his thirst on her if it costs her a drop. Welcome to the new Grant Ward. He's now a better man than a lot of us."

He taps May's badge against the palm of his other hand, as if thinking, his voice softer, more contemplative now. "You don't understand, do you, Victoria," he said. "You have no idea what we got when Jemma Simmons signed up for SHIELD. And to be fair, neither did I, until now."

{ }

When May and Coulson return, Simmons is back on the bus, in the lab with Fitz and Skye and Triplett, those ridiculous green goggles back on her head. The four of them are laughing, and Jemma sees May smile slightly as she looks over at Coulson, who is watching them with his own small smile.

"Ward's back in his cell," Triplett informs them.

"Is everything okay?" Skye asks when they see the two of them standing there. "Because those smiles?" she gestures at them. "Totally creeping me out."

"We're just...happy," May said.

"Agent May is happy. Note the time and place," Skye jokes, and Triplett chuckles.

"But it has been a good day," Fitz points out. "We took down the HYDRA hub and burned that head."

"And Simmons only went to the bathroom five times in seven hours," Skye kids as Jemma makes a face. "Oh, wait, Jem, I'm sorry," she quickly apologizes as Jemma tries to get up from her chair. "I didn't mean - where are you going?"

"Loo," Jemma sighs resignedly, shrugging at Skye to show she's not offended. The biochemist then accepts Triplett's hand in helping her get up.

When she exits the upstairs bathroom, she's startled to see May and Coulson sitting at the bar, waiting for her. May gets up from her seat and pushes over a coaster, then sets a glass on it and pours in a club soda with some lime, a clear invitation. Puzzled, she climbs into the chair.

May gives her an encouraging smile, then disappears into the cockpit. Jemma is thoroughly confused - this whole week has been puzzling to her - as she turns to Coulson. "Sir, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, actually." Coulson looks at her for a long time, as if studying her, and Jemma shifts uncomfortably. He turns so he's facing her, and she turns her stool likewise to face him. "You know, May always told me this, but I didn't believe her."

"Told you what, sir?"

He doesn't answer her immediately, and when he speaks, he doesn't answer her question. "You argued for mercy for the supersoldiers. You argued for saving others' lives with GH325 over and above my need for secrecy. This week, you treated those enemy soldiers with compassion - not with trust, because they didn't earn that - but with mercy."

He took a deep breath. "Somewhere, in our war with HYDRA, we've lost ourselves. Will probably be that way for awhile. You're a lone voice in the wilderness. You remind us - me - of what I'm supposed to do, what I ought to do, not simply what I can do. I understand now why he gravitates towards you." He smiles engimatically at her. "Enjoy your drink," he says as he pats the table, then gets up and leaves.

Jemma stares after him, completely baffled. She sniffs her drink suspiciously.

* * *

It's astonishing to her that it's Fitz who comes with more news of Grant.

He sits her down quietly in their lab, after a long day. He looks conflicted, and he quietly takes her hands. She asks if everything is okay, and Fitz looks like he doesn't want to say.

He licks his lips, takes a deep breath, and then tells her that Grant requested to see him. The ex-specialist wants Fitz to contact SHIELD headquarters to arrange to have his implants removed - the technological one tied to his nervous system, which he used to counteract the logic bomb - and the cyanide one in his mouth.

Jemma gasps. She has been helping SHIELD study the HYDRA implants, with Grant's cooperation, and she knows how difficult the technological one is to remove; it's quite delicate, with the potential for paralysis if done improperly. No less problematic is the cyanide implant: the latter is more dangerous, more likely to be set off and to kill him in the process of removal. There is a 70% chance Ward will die on the operating table, and that has nothing to do with risks of surgery.

"He - I asked him why he didn't come to you," Fitz said quietly. "He said he'd damaged you enough already."

Tears spring to her eyes.

"You know, Jemma, he might not survive this. He most likely won't, if all the failsafes we've been looking at are for real. We've never done this type of surgery before." Fitz's voice is soft.

There's a long silence.

"He went to you instead," Jemma said suddenly. "So why are you telling me all this? Did he tell you to tell me?"

"No. He didn't want you to know, until all the details were set and in place." Fitz coughed. "I told him I was telling you anyway, and if he wanted my help he'd have to put up with it."

There's a long silence, and Jemma can't help the small smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth. "You swore at him, didn't you."

Fitz looks uncomfortable, and then sighs ad admits, "He knows a lot more Scottish swear words than I thought." That makes her smile, and he does too.

After a long moment of silence, he says, "I'm not going to tell you what to do. And I'm not even sure I want him alive after his surgery." When she gives him a look, he holds up a hand. "He betrayed us, Jemma," he reminds her, and Jemma falls silent.

"I would have never thought you were his type," he says, quietly. "Skye, maybe, I thought was his type, what he'd go for. But this - this is - he's different. I think I misjudged. When he talks about you - " He takes a deep breath, but doesn't finish. He simply squeezes her hand and walks away, his new prosthetics thudding quietly on the floor.

The surgery takes hours, and Grant's already under and unconscious when she and Fitz are scrubbed in as observers. Occasionally she looks up to the observation window and sees Skye and May and Coulson standing the window.

At one point he begins to flatline, and the doctors are shouting as they immediately snip one of the wires. The premature cut stabilizes him but adds another hour to the surgery as they have to fish out the remnants. She sits by his head, whispering into his ear, her gloved hands carefully brushing back his sweat-soaked hair. She knows he'd want an account of what's happening to him, so she describes it as she goes, even if he is unconscious.

One of the implants activates the moment they try to remove it. Fitz and Skye scramble to block the signal, and it buys them enough time to remove it. It turns out it releases a chemical in to the blood, and SHIELD hauls it away for testing.

He will lose sight entirely in one eye, and they have to pull out three teeth to get at the dental implant without setting off the trigger, but he's alive when he leaves the surgery theater.

She is the last one to go to see him when he finally wakes up in the recovery room, which is a jailed cell. No one is allowed in, although this time it's not because he's dangerous but because SHIELD wants to make sure HYDRA doesn't set off something in his body they don't know about. He looks at her with his good eye, and he holds the phone on his side of the wall to his ear; she picks up the corresponding phone on her end. They say nothing to each other; he just looks at her, a trace smile on his face.

His child moves inside of her, and she instinctively rubs her hand over her belly, and she sees his eyes follow her hand.

Neither notice Skye at the doorway, turning to go.

* * *

She gives birth without him.

Fitz is there with her, and she is never more grateful for her best friend, and when the baby is born, squalling unhappily, it's Fitz who laughs and grins. The nurses think he's the father, and she's too exhausted and conflicted to say otherwise.

She doesn't see her daughter for four days, because she's putting her up for adoption anyway. But when Fitz brings her the completed adoption forms, she can't sign them. No one would blame her, she knows; they'd applaud her, she knows; but she's too exhausted to make this decision right now. And it's solely her decision to make - SHIELD wouldn't recognize Grant Ward's parental rights even if they knew he was the father.

On the fifth day, she asks to see the child, and the nurses exchange looks but wheel her towards the nursery anyway. "Baby Simmons" is what the sign says.

She's so tiny. So helpless. Given how much weight Jemma gained during the pregnancy, it's amazing she's so small. She reaches into the crib and runs a finger over the tiny fist, and it moves a little, shifting towards her finger before opening and gripping it tight. Jemma feels her heart come to a stop.

This is what she swore to defend when she joined SHIELD. It's been an abstraction until now.

She takes a marker and, in the name slot, writes "Laura."

{ }

Three days later, she's nursing the baby when Fitz comes in. He confirms that he's shredded the adoption papers, per her request, and then he hands her the birth certificate. She notes with some surprise that Grant's name is listed under 'father'.

Fitz then hands her what is clearly a surveillance photo, and it's from Grant's cell. He doesn't seem to know he's being photographed. He's sitting in the corner, looking at a picture, and she realizes it's a photo of Laura just hours after her birth.

Grant is smiling, the first real smile she's seen from him in the last year.

"He paced that cell the entire time you were in labor," Fitz comments. "I think it killed him not to be here." He pauses, then snarks, "I think it just about killed his guards for him not to be here." The grin on Fitz's face is a mile wide, and he holds up a big camera. Jemma nods, then carefully adjusts Laura in her arms, and mother and daughter smile up at the engineer as the shutter clicks.

{ }

When she and Laura are deemed finally well enough to be taken back to the bus, May first calls down to dismiss his guards. The older woman then accompanies her down to Ward's cell. He's lying on his bunk, looking at a small photo he holds in his hand, and he looks up the minute he hears steps on the staircase. When he sees them, he jumps up, grinning a mile wide, rushes to the phone as she picks up its partner on the outside of the cell. She adjusts Laura so he can see her, and both parents can't help beaming.

There's a click and a whoosh, and the smiles disappear instantly as they look around tensely. Ward notices first that the door to his cell is open, but he makes no move towards it. He looks back in cautious surprise at May, but the SHIELD agent isn't looking at him. The older agent smiles at Simmons, holding out an arm, "presenting" the open doorway to her.

It clicks for them both at the same time, and she quickly hangs up the phone and comes around to the open doorway. She pauses in the doorway - she's never been in his cell.

He stands across the room from her, waiting quietly, almost as if afraid she won't come in. She steps inside and seats herself on the couch, and he comes over tentatively towards her before sitting down next to her.

His hands are shaking as he raises them towards her and their daughter, and he tries to steady them but can't. His fingers visibly quiver as they come near, and he gently brushes them against his daughter's forehead. He breathes in, and it catches in his throat.

"I named her Laura," she offers, filling the silence, and he simply nods in understanding. His left hand hovers over his daughter's head, as if afraid to touch her again.

His right hand comes up towards Jemma's face, trembling. He hasn't touched her consciously since they returned to SHIELD nearly eight months ago. Each time he's been out of his cell he's been in shackles, with her kept at a distance; each time she's close enough to touch him, he's been unconscious. He says nothing now, but his breathing is uneven and shaky, and his hand shakes against her face as he cups her cheek, running the calloused pad of his thumb against her cheek. His eyes are glassy with tears, but he is smiling.

* * *

It's amazing to her the type of father he is.

He's still Grant Ward: lethal, overly serious, not apt to enjoy a joke except in rare moments. He also looks sad now, that undertone of sorrow behind everything he does. It was never there before he betrayed them, despite his past; the earliest she remembers seeing it is when he came to see her and Fitz once they had been taken by HYDRA.

But after Laura is born - there's another element. A gentleness she would see rare flashes of before he betrayed them. A tenderness.

Laura is a colicky baby at first, and Jemma's sleepless nights, filled with crying infant, are made easier when they're spent in his cell. Grant can't calm Laura down any more than she can, but it turns out he has more patience than she does, and he rocks their daughter in his arms all night, every night, for days and weeks.

He doesn't pull silly faces or do baby talk, but he can walk the length of his cell for hours on end, his newborn daughter cradled in his large hands. When she gets a little bigger, he has her tucked gently in the crook of his arm, safely nestled against his chest.

She has brief flashes of fear that he will do something horrible to Laura, that all this is some terrible trick and he'll either escape with Laura back to HYDRA or something. Kara simply squeezes her hand comfortingly. Jemma loves that her therapist gives her the time to work through these things.

Laura gives Grant new purpose, Jemma thinks. He doesn't seem to carry a death wish as much any more.

{ }

It seems, though, that in the wake of Laura's birth, her own tentative relationship with Grant deteriorates. In her hurt, she wonders if he only ever just wanted a child and used her to get one.

They get into a shouting match two days before she is to leave to speak at a conference - a knock-down, drag-out argument that finally reveals to her, no doubt inadvertently on his part, how deep his remorse goes and how hopeless he sees his future. She is exhausted from her regular work with SHIELD and preparing for the conference during the day, and then Laura's constant crying at night. When she arrives at Grant's cell that night, she is dragging her feet, not looking forward to another exhausting night, even with him to help her.

It's free of crying when she arrives, which surprises her, and she arrives in the stairwell to see Grant wandering his cell, singing ever so softly. Laura's hands reach up for her father, grabbing at his lips and chin; she is blissfully silent except for the occasional gurgle.

Jemma approaches and is greeted with a smile both of triumph and delight. "I didn't hear crying," she says hopefully, and Grant's smile widens as he slides their daughter into her arms. He's figured it out - she likes Handel's oratorio "Solomon," particularly the Nightingale Chorus and the sinfonia which begins Act 3.

Jemma stares at him, open-mouthed, brow furrowed. He just grins at her, raising his eyebrows with a look of delight at her surprise.

Laura fusses in her arms, and he holds up a finger for Jemma to be quiet; he then begins to hum "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba." Laura quiets down. Laura's mother stares, wide-eyed.

It's not foolproof, comes the caution. It's not foolproof by any means.

Jemma will take what she can get. She laughs, then impulsively reaches up and kisses Grant on the cheek.

It's the wrong thing to do.

The mood is instantly killed, and he pulls away, his smile gone and his delighted expression now blank. Stung, she drops her eyes to the ground.

He doesn't want kisses of obligation, he says in a voice so cold it would freeze fire. He doesn't want kisses of charity. He doesn't need her to feel indebted to him or to pity him or to sympathize with him. The volume of his voice rises with each comment.

"It wasn't offered out of pity or gratitude," she replies, deeply hurt.

He doesn't believe her, and now that the ball is rolling, it's rolling. He uses the word terrorist to describe himself in nearly every other sentence, and shouts at her that he doesn't want her coming to his cell any more, and to take Laura with her, and she should just go and marry Fitz or Triplett or whoever the $%^ she was planning to, anyway, because they'd all be a d-mn good sight better fathers than he is.

When this war is over, he spits at her, he's going straight to jail, and he wants her stationed on the other side of the world, and he doesn't want her to mention him to Laura ever again. In her arms, Laura is crying again.

"What about what _I_ want?" she shouts angrily. "Did you even consider what _I_ want?"

She stomps off, barely registering the stricken look on his face.

{ }

This trip is supposed to be a break. Fitz and Simmons are speaking, and Skye declares herself Laura's "awesome babysitter" during the daytime (though she refuses to tell Jemma what her plans are for their "outings," which scares Jemma to no end); at night, the three of them intend to sightsee. May and Coulson are going on SHIELD business - same city, different purpose. There's nothing for Ward to do, so he's staying on the helicarrier, with Triplett as a guard and escort; Hand said there's something she wants those specialists working on, something related to Garrett.

Jemma intended to come back from the conference and sit down and work out things with Grant in a less emotional, more logical setting. She even had an agenda for discussion written out. (Her planning makes Kara chuckle.) It would be a couple days, at tops, Jemma had estimated. Enough for him to cool down, enough for her to think through things, and enough to have a rational discussion. It's just a couple of days.

It turns out to be four months.

She is the keynote speaker at the closing session. (Fitz opened the conference.) He and Skye are sitting right below the dais, Laura in the baby carrier between them. May and Coulson are back at the bus, prepping it to return home, but promise to be there when she begins speaking. They make it just in time to see the speaker's podium blow up.

It is Fitz who hears the first click and realizes what it is, standing up and shouting, "Jemma!" Skye instantly throws herself over Laura's baby carrier, and Fitz over top of her, even as the stage explodes and erupts in flames. That's all Jemma remembers; the next thing she knows she wakes up in a hospital bed.

May and Coulson shuffle them off to hiding right away, in Providence, while they try to figure out what was happening. Eric Koenig is shocked to see they have a baby with them, and overly nervous around her. But Laura takes quickly to his cheerful attitude, and the months which pass go quickly, especially since the Handel trick works to get them through the last weeks Laura is colicky. She and Fitz and Skye start some new projects in Koenig's small lab, and Laura learns to roll over. She's going to become so spoiled, Jemma thinks fondly, with four adults clapping and cheering whenever she does something - well, make that more than four, because Skye has been using secure channels to send May and Coulson updates (including Laura rolling over) and to send SHIELD headquarters basic reports, which are to be passed on to Ward and to Triplett so they don't worry.

Skye teases her about Trip, whose interest in her is becoming more and more noticeable in the last couple months. Fitz joins in, but Jemma knows he's more amused by the fact that she's managed to attract two specialists at once, when before no one really noticed them, the "Geeky Science Twins."

But, she discovers much to her chagrin, it's not Trip she's missing.

She wonders if it's the recurrence of Stockholm Syndrome. She knows what Grant is - was. She knows what he's done. She doesn't know why her stray thoughts always go to him, and why her heart breaks for him when she finally realizes how it is he currently sees his future. Even when she actively tries to divert her focus, it strays to Grant.

She wonders if she's #$%^ insane.

{ }

The flight home is uneventful, and the only oddity is that Blake requests to see May and Coulson before the others are allowed off the plane. Still, it's not an overly unusual request, and the three of them cheerfully putter about, doing laundry (the machine was broken when they first left for the conference, and they fixed it on the flight home, because May and Coulson didn't know how), chattering, making a list of "real food" they want in the refrigerator, if it will pass SHIELD's new ration rules. (They ARE at war.)

She has a moment of panic when she feels a hand close over her mouth, and then the barrel of a gun pointed at her back. She's struggling when she hears Trip's voice in her ear: "Tell me who the #$^& you are."

When he finally lets her go, she's staring at him like he's gone out of his mind, but he seems quite rational. The small handgun is still pointed at her. He demands to see her belly, and she sees his eyes trace over her stretch marks; he demands to know the identity of Laura's father.

She freezes, then answers honestly.

For a second, it doesn't seem to register with Trip, and she sees a riot of emotions cross his face before he finally lowers the gun. The answer, however, seems to satisfy him enough that she is who she says she is. He pulls out a helicarrier deck worker's uniform and a large, large toolbox. He grabs soft blankets out of the lab closets, tossing the colored ones and using the dark gray ones to line the empty toolbox. She is completely baffled, and gets a mulish look on her face and demands to know what's happening.

He and Grant, Trip begins, were told they had died at the conference. He pulls out his phone and shows her video of the bombing.

She looks up from the video at the face of her friend, shocked and puzzled.

Trip gives her a look, then mentions that he suspected that something else was up and wasn't about to buy it wholesale. Grant, though, hasn't been thinking logically. "I think he believes this is his punishment for what he did. He isn't even questioning it. It's like he expected you to be ripped away from him."

When she begins to protest, Trip shakes his head and interrupts. "Jemma, you're thinking of the old Ward who was undercover. I'm talking to you of the new one - this one you brought back. He's different. He's not the Grant Ward who was with SHIELD, he's not the Grant Ward who was with HYDRA.

"This Grant Ward looks fine on the outside. He eats what's placed in front of him, he goes to briefings, he helps with planning. But his SHIELD doctor is worried - came and told me two weeks ago that Ward's been taking zolpidem a couple times a week the last two months - his request, not hers. She also said if it doesn't stop she's going to switch him to melatonin agonists."

She is stunned into silence. Ward had always been careful, refusing all kind of drugs for many reasons. Didn't like his judgment clouded, he said. She had attributed it to a certain illogical male machismo but had let it go. This, however, is completely unlike him.

"C'mon." Trip thrusts the mechanic's uniform at her, with the hat. He carefully lifts the sleeping Laura out of her baby carrier and nestles her firmly inside the toolbox. She doesn't wake.

He is a good agent, Jemma thinks as they creep through the halls. He knows each camera's blind spot, he knows each camera's location. At times, they actually separate: each time, he gives her exact directions on when to lower her head so the camera only catches the top of her hat, with her hair tucked underneath, and misses what's actually being carried in the toolbox. They meet up again in a blind spot. He smuggles her straight through the helicarrier up to Grant's cell.

Trip hides her and Laura in a dark corner, blocked by a broom closet. She can see, slightly, as he approaches the room. He argues briefly with the guard in hushed voices, then is allowed into the cell.

She is shocked and a little heartbroken when she sees him shake Grant. The normally alert ex-specialist would have been awake when he heard Trip with the guard. When Grant wakes up with a start, he has Trip on the floor in a headlock in few seconds before he realizes what's going on, quickly letting him go. He seems to be apologizing, because Trip is shaking his head, holding up his hands in a "it's totally okay" gesture. He then launches into an animated, heated conversation that has a lot of Grant shaking his head, even walking away from him at one point.

Jemma creeps out quietly, making her way to the door, unseen. She pulls off her hat, letting her curls drop to her shoulder, and lifts Laura out of the toolbox and into her arms. The guard at Grant's door looks visibly shocked, then opens the door to let her in.

The heated whispers stop when the door creaks open. Trip looks up to see her, standing with Laura in the doorway, and then ventures a look at Grant. Trip then turns back to her, gives a small smile, and squeezes her arm on his way out.

Grant just stares at her, as if he's seeing a ghost. She walks up, and when he still doesn't move, she lifts his arms and places their daughter in them. He reaches out, touching the fading scars on her face ever so gently. His whole hand shakes.

She smiles at him, and he clutches her to him, pulling her tight against him. She can feel his rapid heartbeat, his trembling body.

She pulls away and looks up into his face and smiles, gently brushing her fingers over his cuts. "I'm fine," she whispers in reassurance. She pauses, then reaches up and kisses him. He responds with pained desperation, as though she will wink out of his existence again.

That night, back on the bus, she falls asleep with Grant's head in her lap, his one hand gripping hers; their daughter is asleep, held protectively against his chest.

{ }

She doesn't know that that very night, Trip will wait for May and Coulson and report to them everything that's happened. They don't even make it up the ramp before both of them turn on their heel and march straight back whence they came.

Coulson doesn't even knock as he enters Hand's office, where she and Blake are still discussing their report. The normally mild-mannered agent slams both palms down on Hand's desk and leans straight into her face. "Did you order it?"

"Order what." She is clearly annoyed.

"Trip told us he and Ward were informed that Jemma and Laura had perished," May replied, her voice cold.

Hand snorted in amusement, then leaned back in her chair. "No, I didn't order it. I did know about it." She looks rather smug as she looks at Blake.

"We had to test his loyalty," Blake replied, his tone firm, but an element of defensiveness in his tone. "We took him and Trip off the helicarrier to conduct a major raid on HYDRA, based on a last-minute tip. We couldn't risk him turning again."

"How the h-ll does telling him Simmons _died_ achieve that?!" Coulson's voice rises a notch.

Hand just smirks, a "told you so" expression on the face she directs to Blake, who ignores it.

"He has to be doing these things for the _right_ reason," Blake snaps. "Not because he's besotted with one of our agents. He has to be on SHIELD's side because it's right!"

"So you _lied_ to see if your asset's loyalty was _true_," May says sarcastically.

"You could have come to me and asked me if he was reliable, and I could have told you the same!" Coulson's voice rises a notch.

"Oh, Phil, please," Hand replies crisply. "You missed it the first time. Both of you did," she adds, looking at May. "I agree that Blake's methods are silly - you know my position. But you? You had that hacker and then your specialist sell you out within a year, Phil. You can't blame us for not trusting your judgment." She crosses her arms, tilting her head to the side. "You can thank us whenever you want."

Coulson straightens, his face stone cold. "Agent Triplett, get your things and wake up Ward. We're going home. Tonight."

{ }

It is a boon to see Kara after all these months, and Jemma discovers, much to her annoyance, that SHIELD also told the therapist that she had been killed. Jemma speculates that Kara is too just to have let Grant stay in the dark about what really happened, and so SHIELD felt she couldn't know about their survival, either.

In the ensuing days, she learns a lot about what happened those four months everyone thought she was dead.

She and Kara slip easily back into their routine, and she mentions her deep, deep struggle with her feelings, her heart warring with her head. Kara's judgment is both surprising and unhelpful: "Well, I hope you would struggle with your feelings for Agent Ward."

Jemma mumbles something not very charitable.

Kara just laughs. "Jemma, you have seen what depths of evil he's capable of. I would never want you to ignore that."

"You must believe me insane, then."

"Now don't go putting words in my mouth." The exchange turns serious. "Jemma, have you _forgiven_ him for what he did to you?"

Has she? She doesn't know. "I can't forget it."

"I should certainly hope not. Forgiving is not the same thing as forgetting. To forgive is divine, to quote part of the proverb - but to forget is idiotic."

"Can you forgive without forgetting?"

"Of course. If you forget the wrongs against you, then how can you forgive what you don't remember? Forgiveness, as a prerequisite, requires that the victim does indeed remember what was happened."

"I don't know if I've forgiven him."

"Think about it. Take some time to do so. Because if you've not forgiven him, then the rest of this conversation is a moot point."

Jemma pauses, then asks quietly, "I want your honest, honest opinion - as Kara, not as my therapist." Kara nods. "Is redemption possible?"

Her reply is swift, firm: "Yes."

"Even after murder?"

The answer is unwavering: "Yes."

"But - ?"

"But we rarely understand the cost of it." Kara shakes her head. "Redemption means that someone did something wrong - that there was a victim, an innocent victim, that there was an injustice. We can't just give them a hug and a doe-eyed 'I love you' and let it pass. There's someone hurt who shouldn't have been hurt. What about them? Justice has to be done first."

"Punishment."

Kara nods.

"And after?"

"Even after punishment is served, redemption is a terrible process. Self-sacrifice, blood, tears, pain, doubt. Redemption is never easy, never facile. Most people don't understand it. Most people don't make it through it. We have silly notions of giving the benefit of the doubt and second chances and 'if I expect good things from them, they'll try to achieve at that level' and 'luuuurv will make the bad guy good'." Jemma chuckles at Kara's disgusted face. "Most people never realize the cost. And in redemption, someone always pays a price, a terrible one."

"So then what's the point of even trying?" Jemma frowns. "Why bother with redemption if we can just incarcerate them? Justice is served that way."

Kara smiles then, and it seems like her whole face is alight. "Because," she says, her voice soft. "Because, Jemma, sometimes that redeemed world is even more amazing than the one that never fell."

**Next**


	4. Chapter 4

**Apolutrosis**  
by Sammie

See part 1 for all notes. **Nearly every scene is controversial. You are forewarned. And no, I'm not about to get into a battle about it on the comments page. You can PM me.**

~ To Seriously: I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand the logic of your objection - how do cursing and rape fall rationally into the same category of treatment?

If I don't like cursing and want it to stop, I don't curse and I mask the swear word with something else. If I don't like rape and want it to stop, I don't rape and I expose it for the horror it is - I _don't_ try to mask it or the conditions which lead up to it, as it just makes the situation worse and is really a condoning of the behavior. I have an obligation to show it as it is, an obligation _not_ to hide it. Vices end through suppression; evils end through exposure to the light.

I wrote the rape scenes to rip and to tear and to wound - to move the reader, to force us to think - not to titillate. They're meant to be agonizing, not fun. (If someone's getting turned on by the rape scenes, there's either something wrong with the way I'm writing it or with the person reading it.) I wrote them because it seems we - me included - get more worked up about it happening to our favorite fictional characters than to nameless and faceless real people.

Do you mean because both bad language and rape are offensive, so they should be lumped together? But cocaine and food addictions are both addictions, but they're not treated exactly the same way. I mean, cocaine addicts want to get to a place where they never, ever touch cocaine again. I'm not sure doctors want food addicts to get to a place where they never, ever touch food again.

So, yes, seriously, I'm going to block swearing and write rape scenes; that's the logical way to condemn both. I guess I'm confused by the objection...?

~ To readers in general: I wasn't going to do this, but now that it's come up, I'd just like to mention a couple groups dealing with human trafficking, some specifically with sex trafficking. **International Justice Mission**, to begin; **Not for Sale**; **ECPAT USA**, which is teaming with a hospitality institute to stop human trafficking in hotels; **Polaris Project**; **Hagar International**, which is especially close to my heart. There are a _lot_ out there, more than on this list.

OK, now I'm done and stepping off my soapbox. :-) Thank you to all who have read this far, and I hope the ending is satisfactory.

* * *

The day of Laura's first birthday party is, perhaps, typical of all that's craziest about life now. In the morning, Grant is led, in chains (Hand insists), through the helicarrier on which they're docked to an interrogation room. This time, he's behind the mirror, and as he listens to the interrogation of a HYDRA defector, he supplies questions for SHIELD to ask.

He's led back to the bus, where, out of sight of the cargo bay doors, Coulson, with a roll of his eyes, immediately unlocks his cuffs. He bounds up the ramp towards the lab, and his daughter stands up in her playpen and squeals in delight, raising her arms towards her father, who pulls her out of her playpen and tosses her straight into the air (that always makes Jemma's heart stop) before catching her and blowing raspberries on her stomach. The delighted shrieks of laughter fill the cargo bay, and the father finally sets daughter, giggling, on top of his shoulders.

There aren't a lot of supplies available to SHIELD now, due to the war and SHIELD's defeat in the area of public opinion, so they save and pool their rations (Fitz forgoes the spoonfuls of sugar for his tea) so they can have a homemade cake. Laura goes cross-eyed looking at the tiny lit candle on her slice. The candle was used once already, but it was that or buy a new one, and she's only a year old, so what does she know?

Letting her smear cake and icing all over her face and hair and body is the one indulgence of the day. Jemma fusses, but Coulson holds her back. "She's a baby, Jemma," he says gently. "Let's forget war and rationing for a moment and just let her be a baby for today."

There is no question now who the father of her child is. Even if Grant's clear affection for the child weren't enough of a giveaway, she is. Laura has outgrown her light brown hair and bluish-gray eyes and now has her father's ears and his dark hair and his dark eyes, though the shape of those eyes are Mum's.

When it becomes evident who Laura's father is, Grant gets a huge punch in the face from Coulson. More than a punch, actually - nearly a beating, which he stoically takes, and it's only the guilt in his face that eventually causes the older agent to stop. Jemma is horrified by the state of Grant's face and chest when she sees.

Grant's eyes are dull with guilt. He doesn't look at her as she administers treatment, doesn't talk to her the rest of that day.

She hears May and Coulson arguing about it.

It's Fitz who finally speaks up, and it's his status as Jemma's long-time best friend who gives his words weight. He concludes with a quiet statement: "Maybe you should talk to Jemma."

With Skye, the trust is invariably broken, and Jemma is heartbroken for it. For months after the revelation of Laura's paternity, all Skye sees is a monster, her former SO, who abused her close friend. At the same time, this is now her former SO, _her_ former SO, the man in whom she was interested not too long ago - the man who is now helplessly besotted with his little daughter - and even more so with his daughter's mother. Skye is both Laura's greatest defender and awkward aunt.

Some days Jemma wishes for the innocence they had in the months before HYDRA appeared: when they were just all SHIELD agents, when their world was uncomplicated - or as uncomplicated as a world of alien artifacts can be.

She still feels his eyes on her sometimes, both gentle and self-loathing.

{ }

On Jemma's birthday, Coulson administers the SHIELD oath again to Grant Ward. Laura sits on her lap and cheers along with Fitz and Skye. (Does May cheer about anything?) They congratulate him, and they troop down from Coulson's office to the lounge have a rare drink (rations, again), leaving Grant and Jemma alone temporarily.

She stands there with their daughter, who is having a contest with herself to see how many of her chubby fingers she can get into her mouth at once. He approaches her, and she looks up at him. She's about to joke about whether he's excited to be coming on their journey into mystery, but the words don't quite come out, and all she manages is, "So you're a proper SHIELD agent again" - but her pride and her delight shine through.

He smiles gently down at her. Then, his eyes twinkling, he puts his hands on his hips and narrows his eyes at her and turns on a gravelly voice, and does her 'Agent Grant Ward' impression. With the proper nasally tone.

She laughs instinctively, her smile genuinely bright across her face. Their daughter laughs because Mummy is laughing, and Daddy is smiling.

Even in her laughter, Jemma can feel tears slipping down her face. She doesn't know if it's because she mourns the loss of her innocence, or if she's celebrating the return of the Grant Ward she once knew.

He steps forward, cupping her face in both his hands. They could easily kill her, break her neck right now. Instead, he gently brushes the tears from her face and kisses her.

* * *

She discovers a year later, that, much to her horror, that all the SHIELD research - all _her_ research - into the HYDRA implants isn't about saving HYDRA agents, like they did for Ward. SHIELD has developed a virus which will target the implants in HYDRA agents and trick the implants into thinking they're being removed, thus triggering the failsafes and killing all the HYDRA agents. It's called Operation Heracles.

Grant is safe because his implants were removed, but all Jemma can think of is Laura Brown, and the crusty old doctor, and that sassy brunette nurse who helped her over those two-plus years ago.

There is very little she can do. She and Fitz and Skye are called in to help execute the plan, not to debate whether or not to do it. In the SHIELD meeting on the helicarrier, she argues vigorously against it. Victoria Hand and others are quite for it: after all, if HYDRA didn't want to die like this, they shouldn't have started the war. It's their fault. May and Coulson are stoically reluctant but see the benefits. Fitz and Skye don't look pleased at all, but orders are orders.

She uses the same argument she used against killing the super soldiers: they're still human. This type of mass biological murder is against everything SHIELD stands for, she argues. When it does nothing, she appeals straight to Coulson: doesn't everyone deserve a trial, she points out, using his words against him. The Nuremburg trials after World War II were exactly that, to demonstrate to the world that there was a difference between justice and what the Nazis had done.

She's outvoted. Not that she's surprised: she's been the "crazy b-tch who married that HYDRA agent" for ten months now, and it's reaching the point where it doesn't matter how brilliant her research is, it's looked on with suspicion because of her husband. She also knows it hurts everyone else on the team - hurts their credibility - even if they stand loyally by Grant. And, ultimately, all the good _he_'s done in helping to bring down HYDRA is completely ignored, because, well, he's the HYDRA agent. And they still use the present tense in their description.

But if winning back respect means giving up Grant and Laura, she politely declines.

She retreats to her and Ward's room on the bus - the tiny little room carved out of basement storage. She tells him what's been decided - her clearance is now higher than his Level One clearance, so he wouldn't have been privy to that information - and watches as he says nothing.

He adjusts his new SHIELD uniform. He will be piloting one of the transports carrying the scientists doing this task. Up until five minutes ago, he had no idea whom he'd be flying and why.

"Grant, the doctor - the one who treated me. His nurse. Laura Brown. There have to be others," she argues. "You have to know some HYDRA agents who, if they were rescued out, would do the right thing."

He looks at her, his good eye looking just as dead as the other. He will fulfill his oath to SHIELD, because that's what he has just sworn. He will fulfill his oath to SHIELD because he won't endanger her or their daughter any more. But he knows just as well as she does that it's wrong.

It's killing him to do this. She knows it.

Jemma doesn't know enough engineering to fix the technological virus, and she doesn't have the time to learn. She also doesn't have time to alter the biological agent used to carry the virus to render it useless. She does, however, have the time to add a simple agent to all the vials to induce vomiting: none of the virus has time to seep into the body because the individual is too busy throwing it up. The temporary incapacitation will also allow the SHIELD transports to get out of range of HYDRA's guns, so they can escape without damage. It's only a temporary fix, but it buys her time to find a real solution.

She does not tell her husband. When he is interrogated, he can truthfully say he knew nothing.

{ }

The mission is a disaster, in more ways than one. The transports move in towards the HYDRA hub and release the signal. Their test subject in holding becomes violently ill, but not dead; that's the first sign that things are not going the way it was planned. As the virus releases, and the HYDRA agents become ill, the HYDRA helicarrier goes crazy, shooting wildly, and takes down a SHIELD plane. It's May and Ward, the first piloting helicopter back-up and the latter a transport, who manage to save the lives of the SHIELD personnel. There's confusion on deck as the transports radio back in panic.

What is even more shocking is the number of people ill on the SHIELD helicarrier. Terror runs rampant as the chief comm officer suddenly becomes ill, as do three of the crew on the deck of the helicarrier, and then Hand's right-hand man, post-Sitwell. It seems that HYDRA's activation hadn't actually brought out all the sleepers; it had missed those who had actively defected back to SHIELD (or simply refused HYDRA orders and stayed with SHIELD - whichever way one describes it). The chaos is horrible. It takes both Coulson and Hand to bring the helicarrier under control.

The medical bay is swarming with secret HYDRA-recruited, SHIELD-loyal agents. They're quarantined as SHIELD scientists try to figure out what to do.

Jemma is not with them. She sits in their apartment, her daughter on her lap. She has not been permitted in the war room, because she's no longer considered trustworthy. Laura plays with her stuffed rabbit, oblivious to everything going on.

Victoria Hand is furious. She knows exactly who did this, and she wants Dr. Simmons and her husband executed for treason. It doesn't matter that Agent Ward was actually in the midst of the battle, saving SHIELD pilots, when everything went south.

Hand points out, quite rightly, that this sabotage - and that's what it is - means the war against HYDRA has now been prolonged, and it doesn't ensure that SHIELD will win.

Skye knocks on their door half an hour later to announce that Coulson wants to see Jemma.

Jemma has made her peace with what will happen. She did the right thing - she will not be party to the use of biological and chemical warfare to kill people who are, yes, part of a terrorist organization, but have not been put on trial. That's the whole point, isn't it - justice? At the same time, she knows she has broken SHIELD rules, and there are consequences. When she made her decision, she also decided to accept those consequences willingly - execution included.

Her hands are surprisingly still and calm. She picks up Laura and gives her a kiss; her daughter beams at her and holds up her stuffed rabbit for a kiss, too. Jemma smiles, and kisses the toy on the nose. Laura gurgles at her happily.

Jemma turns to Grant, who is as still as stone. "Are you angry with me?" she whispers.

He shakes his head, and though this expression doesn't change, she can see the pain in his eyes. He would never ask her to be less than she is.

She smiles up at him, pulling his face down to hers. "You did the right thing, saving me and Fitz and leaving HYDRA," she whispers. "And I did the right thing, stopping SHIELD from indiscriminate killing without justice."

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"A just war is fought for good ends, but it must be fought in a good manner," she repeats Agent Weaver's lesson, as much for her own benefit and reassurance as for his. "The ends do not justify the means."

He is silent.

She reaches up and kisses him, and he wraps his arms tightly around her, kissing her back with all the fervor and desperation of a husband about to lose his wife. She takes her locket, which has a photo of him on one side and one of Laura on the other, and puts it on.

She walks out of their room by the cargo bay, past the SHIELD agents giving her dirty looks; past the lab, where Fitz and Skye are standing silently; up the stairs to the main floor. She passes Triplett and Hand as she crosses the floor of the bus, and then climbs the stairwell to Coulson's office.

She stands before his desk, her hands folded in front of her, and she has a strange sense of déjà vu except there is no Grant standing next to her, dressed in a gray tee-shirt, smelling of shower soap and seawater, shooting her concerned looks as Coulson yells at her for jumping. She can't believe how far away it all seems, when it was really only three years ago.

"Sit, Simmons." Coulson waves tiredly at the chair, not looking at her. She doesn't. "The virus download failed."

"I see, sir."

"I think I'm far less disappointed than Hand wishes me to be." The older agent sounds weary. "Glad, perhaps."

Jemma says nothing. She knows that if she isn't executed for treason, it will simply be because Coulson has intervened.

"Captain Rogers and Commander Hill will be arriving in eighteen hours. We will debrief then."

"Do you want me here to be debriefed, sir?"

Coulson's voice turns steely and firm. He folds his hands carefully on his desk. "No. Why would you need to be debriefed, Agent Simmons?" he asks, his tone deliberate as he finally lifts his head to look her in the eye. "Do you have something to confess?"

"I - "

"Because I'm not taking statements," Coulson interrupts. "Now go see your husband and your daughter."

* * *

When the war with HYDRA is finally over, and the UN takes over the trials, she and Grant resign from SHIELD.

She goes into research - biomedical cancer research. He joins Interpol as a translator; he ends up a war strategist, including designing raids on everything from drug warehouses to brothels. (His boss doesn't probe too much as to where he gets his expertise.)

Skye wonders if they'd actually like this life, away from the adventures. Grant is done; he doesn't want to be at SHIELD any more, and his diminished eyesight takes him out of the running for major missions, anyway. As for Jemma - well, she realizes that, as much as she enjoyed being in the field, the pain and the suffering has been more than she bargained for.

It's easy enough to blend in. They change their names, and only ever contact SHIELD through Fitz's secure channel. Grant gets Laura up in the morning, feeds her breakfast and gets her dressed, and then takes her to school on the way to work. Jemma picks up Laura in the afternoon on her way home and prepares dinner when she gets back.

They have two more children, both boys (much to Laura's visible disappointment), and their shrieks of innocent laughter fill the yard as their father chases all three around and around. They can't name them after their SHIELD colleagues - too obvious - but they pick names which reminds them of how far they've come.

Laura keeps her name.

{ }

The biochemist is sitting in bed, reading a medical article in the _Lancet_ when her husband comes to bed. She smiles at him, but he doesn't return it.

He turns on the TV, and she looks surprised as Maria Hill and Nick Fury appear on screen. They watch as the two of them, flanked by Philip Coulson and Victoria Hand, speak. SHIELD is being re-established.

"It's been nine years," he comments.

She does the calculations in her head. Nine years since they first met, yes. Nine years since they started a journey that was less into mystery and more into pain and suffering. Hardly like Christmas - well, at least what the mass-market version of it is.

He doesn't say anything for awhile, and they watch the press conference in silence. When it's over, he leaves the TV on, so she thinks the conversation is over.

That's when he finally speaks. "I didn't do it to win you over." He pauses. "I didn't think it was even feasible."

She is about to offer comment, but wisely stays silent. She takes the remote and turns down the volume, but leaves it on a little to fill the silence. She has no idea what he's talking about.

It's as if he doesn't know how to start. "When you and Fitz were first captured by HYDRA - when I first left - " He stops. It's not working. After a long moment of silence he begins again. "You asked me once why I confessed everything - my past, my ties to HYDRA, everything - to you."

She nods but wisely says nothing.

"I also told Skye once that every SHIELD agent has that defining moment, the reason why they join SHIELD." He takes a breath through his nose, tense. "For me, these are one and the same - it was you."

She is genuinely surprised. "Wait, I - what?"

He sits in silence for a long moment. "It feels like yesterday: you, kneeling on the cold floor in my room, dressed in nothing but your underclothing - sobbing, clasping my hands to your forehead." He is struggling to keep his voice steady, and largely succeeding, but there are tears sliding down his face. "Pleading with me, begging me, promising me you could stop crying long enough for me to have sex with you, if I would just please not let Fitz die." He breathes in. "I could see your ribs."

This is the first time she's ever seen her husband actually cry. She's seen him exhausted, frustrated, depressed - even see him with tears in his eyes. But never actually cry. Despite all they've gone through, this is the first.

He manages to get himself under control long enough to continue. "I knew at that moment you'd sacrifice yourself for Fitz. I could demand anything of you, including you in my bed every night. I could ask anything of you, and you'd give it to me, and not because you wanted to, but because you wanted to save Fitz." He took a deep breath. "Seeing you kneeling there - I was killing in you the spirit I had always cherished in you."

His voice is shaking in his confession. "Then - if I had been a better man - but then, I was HYDRA, so - if I had been a better man, I wouldn't have been tempted by your offer. But - " he closes his eyes. "I was so sorely tempted. Horrifingly tempted. That's why I had you sent away that night - had you out of my room before I reached the point where I'd take advantage of what you offered."

Her tears are dried on her face. She is silent.

"Until that moment - you always think the rules are in place because others are terrible, because others have to be in check. Even when you admit you're not a good person, there's still that sense that at least you're not a _bad_ one." His voice shook. "Seeing you there, begging me - it's when I finally realized I was the monster all those rules were there to protect against."

He is not looking at her, rubbing an exhausted hand down his face, over his hair. "After what I did to you, I didn't think it was possible for me - or that I should be allowed - to earn back even your friendship, much less anything else. And it was soon evident to me that I loved a woman I had no hope of getting, a woman of whom I was entirely undeserving."

She watches him, her mouth slightly agape. He's never told her any of this.

He looks down at his hands, and carefully takes her hands in his larger ones. He keeps his gaze down, lowered so he isn't looking at her, even as she looks at his face. "And I had to decide - if I knew I could never have you, did I still do what I should do because it was the right thing, or did I just take the easy way out? The latter was horribly tempting, but I knew I should do the former, whatever the consequences."

She firmly believes it. She wants her children to do the same.

"That was the one thing that was _you_," he says, his voice quiet. "Speaking the truth and doing the the right thing, regardless of the consequences." He pauses. "And I made my decision."

She thinks for a moment, then frowns as she looks up at him. "Is that why you came back to SHIELD, instead of using your identities to disappear? May and Coulson could never figure that out."

"I had a lot of penance to pay for my sins. I'm not sure I've paid even a portion of them." His smile is bittersweet. "Going back to SHIELD was the right thing to do. It was more painful, yes - seeing you was pain and pleasure: knowing I'd damaged you enough that you'd never be who you were, and that I deserved to lose you; but seeing you, knowing that I was on the right track.

"I didn't do what I did to win you," he repeats. "I had no hope of it. But I did do them _because_ I loved you." He is quiet. "You showed me what I should be doing, and why. If - if you had married Triplett, or whoever else - it wouldn't have mattered to me. I'd still have gone back, done what I did."

It's the most beautiful thing he could have said to her. "I'm not perfect," she whispers.

"I know that. I don't expect it. I will never ask you to clear a room, go undercover, interrogate someone, do anything involving hand-eye coordination, try to explain science to high-schoolers, shoot a gun..." His eyes are twinkling at her, but they carry a weight and a sadness behind them. "But you - this - " his smile disappears, and he's just staring at her, all gentleness and intensity. "You pulled from hell. You saved me from myself."

Her eyes are blurry with tears, and she flings her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. He buries his face in her hair, his long arms wrapping her tightly against him. "I love you," she whispers.

_END_


End file.
